


Headrest for My Soul

by likeporcelain



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dany is a single mother, F/M, Implied Daenerys Targaryen/Robb Stark, Incest, Jon's POV, Memory Loss, Minor Jon Snow/Ygritte, POV First Person, R Plus L Equals J, Romance, Setting - Los Angeles, incest warning, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-01 20:43:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 81,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19185205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeporcelain/pseuds/likeporcelain
Summary: Jon Snow remembers nothing of the last ten years of his life, save for a single dream of a beautiful young woman with silver hair. Upon discovering this woman is a real person, and that his dream was really a memory, Jon grows convinced that she is somehow important to him. Jon attempts to insert himself into her life and gain her trust, but if the truth of their connection is ever revealed, it may destroy any chance they have at happiness.(Title taken from a song of the same name by Awolnation)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! First of all, thank you to everyone who has read any of my previous works. I'm very excited (nervous) to bring y'all something new! And it's another memory loss au lol. Expect incest (this is your warning). Expect angst (it is hard for me to gauge the level of angst in something I've written, so let's just assume there's a lot - this is your warning). Expect fluff, pining, and precious domestic/parenting moments. Expect smut, but not til about half way through the fic. Expect a couple scenes of violence between male characters. Expect a really emo and totally lovestruck Jon Snow. Expect long chapters! Expect frequent updates! This fic is FINISHED! Lastly, if you for whatever reason find you are not enjoying this fic, please simply stop reading it. I have no desire to make someone read my work who doesn't like the content, hence my warnings above. (If, for any of my fics, you ever want specific warnings that may include spoilers, feel free to message me on tumblr - my username is in my bio). Please leave kudos and comments if you do enjoy it. Wow! Here we go again (:

I'm sitting at a booth at the back of a retro diner near the downtown square. Lucille's, it's called. A narrow 24/7 joint with torn red vinyl lining the benches and stools, fruit pies spinning on a carousel in a display case by the register. One of those quaint little places that you go to just to discover how such a place has endured the bombardment of chain restaurants, artisan cafes and funky coffee shops that seem to have taken over the city while I was. . . well, living a life I can't remember. But that isn't why I'm here, and I'm not here for the pancakes either, even though that was my intention when I went out walking this morning. I'd gone searching for pancakes and found something else entirely. That is, I found _someone_.

For a week or so, I'd lived with an image in my head that I couldn't shake. It came to me in a dream at first. A petite young woman standing in a simple black cocktail dress and lace gloves all the way up to the elbows, silver hair falling in thick waves past her shoulders, a ponderous expression playing on her face as she stares off at nothing, finger tapping mindlessly against the martini glass in her hand. I did not think it was a memory when I awoke from that dream, and when I asked the strangers who call themselves my loved ones who this silver-haired girl could be, none of them had any clue. I would never admit this aloud, but when I met the woman named Ygritte who calls herself my girlfriend to find she is tall, thin and red-haired, I was disappointed. My cousin, Robb, had been right. This girl I dreamt of was a dream and nothing more.

But then I came across Lucille's. I'd been walking for some time, an hour maybe, looking for a place to eat that would recreate some semblance of a feeling of home. Just as I was rounding the corner, I saw a billow of long silver hair waving in the breeze behind a fair faced young woman as she hurriedly jaywalked across the highway before rushing into the diner. Though she was wearing an unflattering, yellow, checker-print frock instead of a sleek black cocktail dress and carrying a cheap purse rather than a sophisticated drink, there was no doubt in my mind that this was the girl from my dream.

When I walked into the diner, I scanned the restaurant for my dream-girl, so to speak, but couldn't find her, and less than a minute later, I was told by an older woman in the same tacky dress to take a seat wherever I liked, so I sat in the back at this booth I sit in now, a menu already on the table, but I never bother opening it. Even with the strong scent of maple syrup in the air, I forget all about pancakes.

Finally, the dream-girl emerges from a back room at the other end of the restaurant from the booth I'd chosen and she's tying one of those green aprons around her waist that hold notepads and pens for taking down orders. I watch her pull those items from her apron as she steps up to the first occupied booth she comes by. She has a customer service smile planted upon her face, kind but expressing no real emotion. It never falters as she moves onto the next table.

I find that I'm nervous, fingers picking at the hang nail on my other hand. I keep turning my eyes down to the table every few seconds in case it looks like I'm staring, because I am staring. I can't help it. She looks so much like the girl my cousin and the rest of them had me convinced wasn't real. Maybe this isn't her. Maybe my dream isn't a memory at all, and this waitress's physical similarities are just a coincidence. But then, what's the worst that can happen? I ask her if she knows me, she tells me she doesn't, and I go on with my life. . . or whatever this is I'm supposed to be living. All I have to do is ask.

However, I never actually have to ask. As soon as she has taken the orders of the other three occupied booths, she turns to take the order of the fourth, which is me. She takes a few steps in my direction before her eyes find me, and then her feet stop.

For what feels like an eternity, she stares at me with such an unreadable expression. It reminds me of the look my girlfriend had when she saw me for the first time a few weeks ago, and I wonder if that means this dream-girl is also my girlfriend. Two girlfriends? But I quickly recognize the subtle differences in how she is looking at me versus how Ygritte looked at me. My dream-girl does not wear the same array of emotions upon her face: confusion, elation, sadness, and pity. No, she looks angry and annoyed. She looks frightened.

Her chest heaves in a breath before her feet finally carry her the rest of the way to my table. With her notepad and pen clutched in her hands hanging to her sides, she looks down at me with a frown and glossy eyes – blue with lines of green and flecks of gold, unlike Ygritte’s whose blues are so pure they could cut through ice. “What do you want?” she asks with a stiff jaw.

Blinking up at her, all my mind can come up with is, “Uh. . . pancakes?”

“No,” she replies gruffly, voice quiet but fiery. “I mean, what the fuck do you want? We had a deal. I did what you wanted me to do. Now leave me alone.”

With that, she tears the menu from my table and takes it with her as she marches back across the diner.

It's probably silly, but in that moment, I feel such a profound sense of loss that my eyes begin to water. She recognizes me. She remembers me, which means that I remember her – the only person my mind has been able to recollect from the damaged part of my brain where ten years of memories reside. I can’t remember my mother dying. I can’t remember going to law school. I can’t remember reuniting with the estranged part of my family tree to the point where I actually began working for Stark Incorporated. But I remember her, and yet, she wants nothing to do with me.

* * * * *

“What's the last thing you remember, Jon?”

It was the first question the doctor asked me after it became clear that my mind was missing a substantial gap of time. The problem was, I couldn't really remember the last thing I remembered. I only had a vague recollection of being nineteen, finishing up my first semester at Chicago University, trying to find enough money to fly back to Los Angeles for the holidays. I couldn't remember taking my finals, but I remembered the airport. I couldn't remember being on the plane, but I remembered Mom meeting me after I landed.

I told all of this to the doctor, and then asked the futile question: “Where's my mom?”

Peering down at the clipboard in his hand, he replied, “Your next of kin is listed as Robb Stark. We've already contacted him to let him know you're awake, so he should be here soon.”

“Robb? I don't. . . My cousin? Why would he be my next of kin? I don't understand.”

“Confusion is normal. You suffered a pretty serious head injury. We had to put you into a medically induced coma just to keep the swelling in your brain down. We expected you to wake up weeks ago. Well, it's a miracle you're awake at all and hopefully, with time, your memories will return to you.”

Raising my hand to my head, I touched the bandages and gauze wrapped firmly around it.

“Am I in LA?” 

“Yes. Santa Monica.”

“What’s the date?”

“February 8th.”

My eyebrows furrowed, but even that simple movement caused my head to ache, and the absurdity of all of this wasn't making it any better.

“February? It's 2010 already?”

After clearing his throat, the doctor responded soberly, “No, Jon. February of 2019.”

* * * * *

From the diner, I walk aimlessly around the city blocks until my sore feet finally bring me to the gates of a park. It isn't until my mind processes my surroundings that I realize I'm wandering through a graveyard. I don't remember this place, but it feels like I've been here before.

I spin around and around, looking in every which direction over the sea of tombstones, trying to figure out which way I'm supposed to go – which way my subconscious is taking me. This must be where my mother is. In the month since waking up in the hospital, I've refused Robb's offer to take me to visit her grave. As long as I didn't see it, I could convince myself that she isn't really dead, and that this isn't really my life. Just a dream I'll wake up from sooner or later. But now I find myself yearning desperately for proof that this nightmare is indeed a reality.

But I can't do it. I can't remember. I'm stuck standing here between tombstones in the middle of a cemetery and I don't know where to go. If I could have had one memory, why could it not have been where I'm supposed to go to find my mother? Why did my one memory have to be of a girl who wants nothing from me except distance?

Pressing the heels of my hands against my wet, burning eyes, I will myself to think. Just remember which way to go. Just remember which corner to head towards or which tree to look for.

A buzzing in my pocket interrupts my fruitless efforts before my head can explode and I pull the large rectangular thing out of my pocket. New Message, it reads. From Robb: _Where are you? You okay?_

I tap on the notification, but nothing happens. I tap on it twice and it takes me back to that same password protected screen it's been showing me since I dug it out of the bag of personal items the hospital gave to me when I was discharged.

“Fuck you!” I shout down at it. “I don't know your stupid fucking password you piece of shit!”

It buzzes again with another message, but the lock screen remains.

“Fuck!” I throw it down on the ground at it bounces against the grass with a thud.

I jump at the sudden sound of a dog’s bark and I quickly turn around to see a shaggy brown mutt standing at attention.

“Hey!” calls out an older man as he jogs with a limp toward me.

For some reason, my first instinct is to apologize to the man when he comes up and takes the dog by its collar. Even though the life I remember seems so far away from me now, the impulse to submit to adults comes naturally. No matter how long I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror at night, I still can't shake the fact that I'm almost thirty now and have no fucking idea how that happened.

“I'm sorry. Your dog. . . um. . .”

“Old Simon just likes to run up on people,” the man explains. “He's a noisy little shit, but real friendly. He didn't scare ya, did he?”

I shake my head, even though he did sort of scare me. Simon does seem a lot friendlier while he's being scratched behind the ear by his owner, but there is something about the animal that makes me nostalgic. My mom was allergic to dogs, so I could never get one growing up, but for some reason, when this older man asks me if I have a dog, I feel like I do. The only problem is, if I had a dog, Robb certainly would have told me, wouldn't he? Someone would have told me. All these people might feel like strangers to me, but I'm supposedly not a stranger to them.

“No,” I tell the man. “I've never had a dog.”

When the man begins wandering off in the direction he came, dragging Simon along with him, I notice the ring of keys hanging from his belt loop, jingling with each step he takes.

“Excuse me?!” I call out to him. “Do you work here?”

The man leads me to the office where a manifest is kept of all the grave sites. North East corner, three in from the fountain to the left. That's where I find my mother.

Lyanna Snow  
Mother, Daughter, Sister  
1970 – 2018

The last thing I remember my mom saying to me is, “We have got to do something about that hair.” She didn't like that I let it grow out. She liked it short. So far that's the only thing I like about this new, current me – that I didn't have short hair. The long curls help to hide the ridged scar running a quarter length around my skull. It still stings a bit to touch, but as I stare down at my mother's name etched into this headstone, I run my fingers across the healing flesh. Whatever my mother said next is in here.

Once again, I feel a buzzing in my pocket. It's that phone again. I'm not sure why I still carry it around. For the clock I suppose, not that I ever actually have any place to be.

It isn't a message notification this time but an actual call coming through and it's wanting me to swipe toward a red phone icon or a green phone icon. When I swipe toward the green, I'm shocked when the screen doesn't immediately ask me for a password.

“H – hello?” I ask tentatively into the rectangle.

“Hello, is this a Mr. Jon Snow?”

“Uh, yeah. It is. Who's this?”

“I'm with the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter. We've been trying to reach you for some time, Mr. Snow. We got your number from the veterinary office you brought Ghost to a few months ago. They said that you had expressed interest in—"

“I have a dog?” I interrupted.

“If you'd like, sir. Unfortunately, Ghost is scheduled to be euthanized on Monday, which is why we've been calling. We won't be able to keep him any longer if no one—"

“I'll come get him.”

“Oh, that's wonderful! We'll be open until six tomorrow if—"

“I'll be there.”

After I hang up, I find that I'm smiling, and it feels like the first time I've smiled in a really long time. I was right. I do have a dog.

* * * * *

It's been dark for some time when I finally get back to Robb's house, having walked the entire way, because the bus lines are different now than when I was a kid, and there don't seem to be any payphones in existence around this city anymore either. 

“Jon, where've you been, man?” Robb asks in a rush as soon as I'm in the front door.

The home is huge and lavish and spotless. I hear a kids’ show playing faintly from the back of the house where Robb's son watches TV. I smell something delicious coming from the kitchen where Robb's wife, Talisa, cooks, but I'm not hungry. I go straight up the stairs to the guest room where I've been staying.

Robb follows, his voice saying words that I don’t care to hear. “I was worried when I got home from work and you weren't here. Have you been out all day?”

In my room, I go to the en-suite, turn on the sink faucet and splash water on my sweaty face, then dry myself off with a hand towel. Finally, I turn to Robb who stands in the bathroom doorway with a confused expression on his face.

“I need you to write down my address for me. It's time for me to go home.”

“Jon, I don't think that's a good idea just yet. You're still recovering—"

“I walked like twenty miles today. I think I'm recovered,” I say, side stepping past him to get into the bedroom.

I round up what little possessions I care to take with me: a watch that looks more expensive than my tuition at Chicago U, in case I need to hit a pawn shop for cash, and a black leather jacket that just looks really cool.

“Well, at least stay for another week or so—"

“No, I have to leave. I can't be here anymore. I have to. . . I have to find a pet store.”

Robb's perfectly manicured eyebrows furrowed. “A pet store? Why?”

“Because I remembered something.”

“What?” He side-steps, blocking me from the bedroom door when I make to leave. “What did you remember?”

“It wasn't really a memory, I guess. A feeling really, but it turned out to be real. And my dream about the girl – the one I told you about – that was real, too.”

I make to move around Robb, but he takes my shoulders in his hands and halts me, staring into me with concern, but also something else. “What are you talking about, Jon?”

Staring back into him, I answer curtly, “I'm talking about you lying to me. You said I didn't know any short women with long silver hair and blue eyes.”

Releasing my shoulders, Robb sighs and shakes his head. “I didn't lie to you. If you were hooking up with some other girl, you definitely didn't tell me about it.”

“I was hooking up with her?”

“I don't know. You're the one who said you remembered. I have no idea who she is.”

“Well, I. . . I didn't really remember. I just. . . I saw her, and she saw me, and she recognized me, but she told me to stay away from her.”

For a long moment, Robb simply blinks at me, like he is struggling to process everything at once. Eventually, he says, “I suppose you'd better leave her alone then.”

Shaking my head, I rub the back of my neck and mutter, “I've got to go home.”

“You don't even know where home is.”

“I know that it's a place full of my shit, and if I'm ever going to get my memories back, I should probably be around things that will remind me of the memories I’m trying to remember. Right?”

“I can help you. I've been trying—"

“I don't want your help anymore,” I state pointedly. “I don't know you, and I don't want to be here anymore. I feel trapped.” I know the words are harsh, but I don't care. Nothing about being in this house feels right. Nothing about standing here with Robb feels right. Reading my mother’s name upon that headstone reminded me of how hard she worked to keep me away from the Starks. A family akin to royalty in this city. Rich and powerful. Los Angeles belonged to them, but that was not the life my mother wanted for herself, or for me. Simply having the name Stark was too much for her that she had it legally changed to Snow before I was born. 

He smiles a little smile, the kind one makes when they're so annoyed all they can do is smile. “Fine. I'll have my driver take you home. But here's some advice, Jon. While you're trying to piece back the last ten years, maybe start with the people who actually give a shit about you. Like me. Like the rest of our family. Like your girlfriend. You might not know us, but we know you.”

It sounds like a threat coming from him, and maybe I deserve that for being so ungrateful, but it only makes me angrier. All these people he wants me to remember, they are as real to me as characters in a book I haven't read.

“Thank you for letting me stay here,” I say, cooling my temper, because I am almost thirty after all, even if it makes no sense. “I'm sorry I worried you.”

After that, I leave. Robb doesn't even have to tell his driver my address before the man in a black suit starts toward my house, and I realize then that I could have asked the driver to take me home weeks ago.

* * * * *

My muscles had atrophied while I was incapacitated. It took a week to be able to walk from my hospital room to the nurses’ station – maybe five yards – without help. It took another week to be discharged from the nursing facility. During that week, where I spent ninety percent of my time lying in a hospital bed watching TV shows I’d never heard of and ten percent of my time in agonizing pain while a physical therapist berated me for not trying hard enough in the gym, Ygritte came to visit me. 

If my life hadn’t already felt like one never-ending Twilight Zone episode in which I was the star of, having a woman more beautiful than even the girls I used to fantasize about in high school wrap her arms around me and tearfully tell me how scared she was that she may have lost me forever was the most surreal experience yet. Her angular edges brought me no comfort, and her hair smelled like the perfume my mom’s friends would wear. I struggled to reciprocate the hug, which I’m sure she chalked up to my weak muscles. 

“When I heard you were awake,” she paused to sniffle against my shoulder, “I booked the first flight back to LA, but the contract my dick manager got me into forced me to stay in New York until the show finished. I’m so sorry, babe.” Pulling away, I saw the streaks of tears staining her thin face. Her hands rose to my cheeks. They were ice cold. “You look terrible. You’ve lost weight. What are they feeding you in this dump? I’m going to call Robb right now. We need to get you someplace where they’ll actually take care of you. This is unacceptable.” 

“I feel alright,” I said in the neutral monotone I’d adopted since the dose of my pain killers were adjusted. 

“No, you don’t. How can you? I missed you so much. The doctors told me there was a chance you’d never wake up, but I knew you would. I knew you’d never leave me.”

At this point, I couldn’t even remember her name – I couldn’t remember any part of her – and how was I supposed to ask for her name after she said something like that? 

“When you’re all cleared, I’m going to take you home, alright?” she went on.

“We live together?” 

Her back seized just enough for me to notice, and I immediately felt guilty for letting the question slip. Either she didn’t know, or for a brief second, she had forgotten that I had no idea who she was. 

“Not technically, but we’ve been talking about moving in together for a while. You don’t remember any of that? No, of course you don’t. You shouldn’t be alone, though. We need to work on getting your memories back. I’m not letting you use this coma as an excuse to back out of proposing.” She said the last bit with a little smile, but as soon as my eyebrows furrowed in confusion, it was replaced by an awkward sadness. 

“Robb wants me to go home with him.” I felt guilty saying it, especially since I didn’t even want to stay with Robb, but to a greater extent, I did not want to be around a walking red-headed reminder that I’m supposed to be in love with someone who I feel nothing but polite ambivalence toward. 

“Fuck Robb,” she stated before shaking her head and letting out a heavy sigh. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

But it felt like my fault. It felt like my entire existence was just to disappoint everyone around me. Like I was nothing but a physical embodiment of some biblical trial they all must endure. An obstacle during their personal journey. I sacrificed a third of my life so that their lives could suck enough to make up for whatever shitty thing they did in a previous one. 

And then, I discover that not only should I feel shame for not remembering the things I’ve done, but I should also feel shame for the things I can’t remember doing. 

The dog is helping me to forget about all of that, though. Ghost, I think is what the woman on the phone called him. Her? I can’t remember, but what else is new. I free my mind of want for my mother, frustration toward Robb, and stomach-churning puzzlement about my dream-girl and fill it with excitement for a new friend. 

“I have a dog,” I tell Robb’s personal driver in response to his inquiry about my health. 

“Oh?” he asks like he’s never heard me mention a dog before in his life. 

I’m dropped off in front of a tall building that looks almost entirely made of glass. It looks more like a luxury hotel than any place a normal person would live. But when the driver gives a hardy “Here we are, sir,” I am struck with the notion that I was not a normal person, and suddenly the fact that I have a girlfriend who is a professional model makes sense. 

An older man in a black suit with red trim opens the building door for me like I have been expected. 

“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Snow,” says the man with an enchanted smile, like I’m someone famous. “I was so glad to hear you had gotten out of the hospital. I hope you don’t mind, I brought all of your gifts into your apartment.”

“Gifts?”

Pressing the elevator’s “up” button for me, the man replies cheerfully, “Well, yes. Everyone has been sending their well wishes.”

“Who is everyone?” 

“Well, I don’t know, sir. Family and friends, I suppose. Co-workers?”

I hum under my breath suspiciously. “Is there any food?”

“Lots of chocolates, that’s for sure. Would you like me to place a delivery order for you?”

“Um, no. That’s alright. Who are you?”

The elevator dings before the doors slide open. I step inside. The man looks confused. 

“Davos. Davos Seaworth. The doorman.”

“Oh,” I say like I remember, but I don’t. The elevator doors begin to close, and I stop them by sticking my arm between them. “Sorry. Head injury. Could you tell me where exactly I live?”

The top floor apparently. Mr. Seaworth takes me all the way up and even shows me which key on my keyring unlocks the thick wooden door with the numbers 12A beside it. I push the door open and am immediately greeted by two dozen baskets full of novelty junk food sitting in the foyer. 

“There were more, but I had to toss the fruit baskets on account of the smell,” Mr. Seaworth tells me. 

As I step further into what is supposedly my home, I can’t help getting the opposite feeling. There is nothing homey about this place. The floors are hard and shiny, the walls white and undecorated, the furniture scarce and sleek, and the kitchen looks as if no one has ever cooked in it. The entire place looks like it has never even been lived in. There’s an echo when I speak. 

“Is this how it always looks?”

From behind me, Mr. Seaworth gives an awkward reply. “I suppose so, sir. Is something the matter with it?”

An entire wall is just floor to ceiling glass, but it’s dark outside now so all I see is a reflection of myself. “I don’t know,” I mumble. “Do you know me pretty well, Mr. Seaworth?”

“Call me Davos, sir. And. . . I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve known you since you moved in three years ago, but I suppose I don’t know much about you personally. Aside from your cousin and your girlfriend, since they’re your most frequent visitors.”

“What do you think of them?”

Davos clears his voice. “I, um, I’m not sure. They seem pleasant enough.” 

I hum under my breath again, wondering how I could use this non-information to help my case. But what is my case exactly? 

“Is there a pet supply store near here?”

“Well, sure. There are quite a few. If you’d like, I can have whatever you need delivered, but I didn’t think you had any pets, sir.”

“I have a dog. I’m picking him up tomorrow. Or her. I’m not sure. What about food? What do I usually do for dinner?”

“I could place your usual order at that Indian place down by—"

“I don’t like Indian food.”

“Oh. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else. There’s the Sushi place—"

“I don’t like sushi.”

Davos’s eyebrows furrow again, no doubt wondering how he could be wrong about two of my tastes, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t wrong. Maybe I grew to love curry and raw fish, but I don’t remember that, and I’ve had enough new experiences today. 

“What about pizza?” I ask. “Pretend I’m a teenager who just wants to eat something greasy. What do you recommend?” 

Wearing a look like he is hardly familiar with the concept of pizza, Davos nervously replies, “Domino’s?”

Eyes widening, I snap my fingers with delight. “Yes, that’s what I want. A large Domino’s pizza with double pepperoni. Do you want anything? We could hang out.”

With a chuckle, Davos shakes his head. “I have to get back to my post.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry. You go on back. I didn’t mean to take up your time.”

“That’s quite alright, sir. I’m happy to be of assistance.” 

Davos turns and heads for the door, but as he’s opening it, I stop him with a question. “Do you think I’m a good person, Davos?”

Turning with another of his perplexed expressions, he answers, “Of course, sir.”

Reluctantly, I ask, “How do you know?”

“Well. . .” he lets out another chuckle. “You’re a good tipper at least.”

I allow myself a smile before my doorman departs and once the front door is closed behind him, I’m left immersed in the eerie silence of this cold apartment. 

* * * * *

At ten in the morning, I awaken on the couch beside an empty pizza box and four empty beer bottles with the TV on a movie channel I had fallen asleep watching. I find the remote and turn the thing off. I have a headache, probably from the beer and looking at a TV screen the size of a billboard all night. The sun is beating down on me from the wall to wall window to my right, but I’m still cold from the over-compensation of the air conditioner. I wonder how much I pay each month in electricity, and how much I paid for this condo. I’m rich, obviously. I suppose I won’t have to pawn that watch after all. 

Davos points me in the direction of the nearest pet shop, and while I’m there, I feel like a kid in a candy store, throwing anything and everything a dog could ever need into my cart. I plan for any contingency. “What breed of dog is it?” a sales associate asks me, but I don’t know the answer, so I buy a collar in every size available. “Is it an adult or a puppy?” and I have no answer for that either, so I buy both adult and puppy food. 

At the check-out, they ask me if I need help out to my car and I realize I don’t have a car. No worries, though, because they deliver. Everything is working out. All that is left to do is go get my dog. 

The shelter is bleak with concrete walls and floors painted grey, and the smell is a strange mix of feces and bleach. At least I didn’t wake up in a place like this. A shelter volunteer helps me with the paperwork before disappearing down a long hallway where a chorus of raucous barking is coming from. A minute later, he is returning with a leash in hand, and on the other end of that leash is the largest creature I’ve ever seen face to face outside of a zoo. This isn’t a dog, it’s a beast. His head reaches the volunteer’s chest as he trots alongside him, and his body is covered in dense white fur. His happy expression betrays the ominous blood-red color of his irises. His tongue hangs out the side of his panting mouth. A big, goofy beast. It immediately brings a smile to my face. 

Perhaps it is ironic that I should feel such immediate companionship toward an animal I have almost no bond with, but meeting Ghost in that shelter feels more like a family reunion than anything so far. 

* * * * *

My phone has been buzzing with calls from Rob and Ygritte and a few other names I don’t recognize, but I’m not interested in talking to anyone who thinks they know me anymore. While walking back to the apartment with Ghost – a four-mile hike that Ghost is more than happy to commit to – I stop at a Verizon store and get a new phone with a new number and set the password to something I’ll actually remember. 

When we get home, my new friend seems as out of place in the lavish apartment as I do. Dog paws don’t feel good on marble floors, I suspect. I pull a stack of bed blankets out of a closet and throw them over the leather furniture and coax Ghost to take a load off. I wonder what the old me – the two months ago me – would think about a two-hundred-pound dog sleeping and slobbering all over his luxury home decor. I drift off with Ghost’s head in my lap until a knock at the door startles us both awake. 

It’s the delivery people from the pet store, and once they have all of Ghost’s new food, and bowls, and toys, and leashes moved into the foyer, I give them a big tip and start on fixing my new dog an early dinner. I order pizza again and let Ghost have a slice for dessert. We go for another walk, just around the block this time, and at bedtime, I let him occupy the other half of my king-sized bed and laugh for five minutes straight while he licks my bare feet. When he finally settles down, curling into a giant ball and closing his eyes, I turn over and reach for the switch on the gold-plated bedside lamp. 

Something silvery catches my eye before I can bring myself to turn out the light, though, a shimmer coming from the gap where the lamp’s gold footing raises it up no more than an inch off the tabletop. A stash of collectable silver coins perhaps? I reach my fingers into the gap and pull out a silver disk, but this is no coin. It’s thick and so obviously fake that even my untrained eye notices its inauthenticity immediately. There is a seam running around the disk which instantly explains the chain attached to it. 

A locket. I pop it open. On the right side is a small color photograph of a baby girl, maybe a year old, sitting up in a red dress and a white ribbon tied around her head to form a bow at the top. Curly chocolate hair swirls around her face, and her large dark eyes shine with happiness. Her smile is wide, showing off two tiny front teeth, and her chubby hands are pressed together like the photographer captured her mid-clap. On the left is an engraving in cursive: _For a wonderful father. Love, Rhae. 2011. ___

__It feels like something cold is pressing against my heart while something hot squeezes around my neck. I can hardly sit up my arms tremble so fiercely. Father? I can’t be a father, can I? 2011. . . I can’t remember 2011. I can’t remember anything past 2009. I don’t even remember losing my virginity._ _

__“Oh, God,” I mutter to myself, because I can’t stop the thought train from crashing against my skull and exploding into a trillion little voices screaming at me that I could actually have a child. She looks like me. The dark hair. The eyes. . ._ _

__Would Robb really not tell me that I have a daughter? Would I really not have told him that I have a daughter?_ _

__* * * * *_ _

__Not sleeping makes me paranoid – some things never change – and paranoia makes me hyper focus which helps when trying to figure out a password to a laptop I bought almost a decade after my memory ends. I found a poster of a band rolled up in the closet, because apparently actually hanging it up would ruin the awesome aesthetic of a completely bare white wall. I’ve never heard of the band before, but the password ends up being the title of the album the poster was promoting followed by the issue number of the poster._ _

__My MySpace account is deactivated so I move on to Facebook and find that while I hardly ever posted anything, my girlfriend, Ygritte, is quite the social media queen. I go through seven years of selfies and pictures of salads, news feed posts about the best hiking spots in Los Angeles, and advertisements for the yoga class she attends on Saturdays, but there is nothing about a baby. But, I suppose if I did have a child born before 2011, the mother wouldn’t have been Ygritte, so what is more striking is that in the years since creating the account, I had never once mentioned a child on my own profile, which means one of two things. Either I don’t have a child, and the locket hidden under my lamp means nothing, or I was for some reason desperate to keep the fact that I have a child a secret from everyone in my life, which somehow doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch._ _

__When the sun rises, Ghost gets restless, so we go for a walk. I stop at a 7-Eleven and get a Redbull, but walking through the city so early in the morning, I can’t help but feel like I’m a pod person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I have no idea what is going on, but I know that, somewhere along the way, I fucked things up for myself and now I’m stuck, wishing I could go back in time and do everything over the way I always planned on. I should be living in a two-story cottage in Colorado with a lake in my backyard, teaching anthropology at a local college and fishing in my free time. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here._ _

__An hour passes and we reach the cemetery. It’s closer to my condo than it is to Robb’s place and, somehow, my feet remember the way to get there even if my brain doesn’t._ _

__We pass the old man with the limp on our way through the grounds, and I give him a small wave. The one person I’ve met in this world who doesn’t treat me like I should know everything about them._ _

__It’s silly, I know, but for a long while I just sit on the damp grass in front of my mother’s headstone with Ghost lying beside me, telling him all about my life before all of this happened. Stories about the trip Mom and I took to Chicago for my school orientation, and about the party my dormmate and I threw that first semester that went so terribly wrong, and about hooking up with the teacher’s assistant from my colonial history class. It feels like forever ago, but they are some of the last good memories I have._ _

__Sometime later, I wake up with the sun glaring down at me from the center of the sky and Ghost clawing at the nearest tree trying to catch a squirrel._ _

__“Here, boy!” I call out with a sleepy, scratchy voice as I pick blades of grass out of my hair._ _

__I bid Mom a goodbye and then we’re off, letting my subconscious guide our next path. But, that’s a lie, because really, I wanted to go back to the diner. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I wanted to go to the diner, so when we end up right across the street from Lucille’s, I almost convince myself it’s unintentional._ _

__There’s a smoothie shop right across the busy four-lane highway from the diner and, while I don’t particularly like smoothies, I can tell my body is in need of something at least slightly healthy, so I get myself something fruity and find an outdoor table with a perfect view through the windows of the diner. I sip slowly and for over an hour, every time the tiny silhouette of a young silver-haired woman comes into view, my heart races just a little bit more – probably because I feel like a complete weirdo, but also because I’m nervous that if she notices me watching her, she’ll get angry, and I can’t let her be angry with me again. The thought of it hurts more than the thought of having a secret kid, as terrible as that sounds._ _

__I come back the next day for another smoothie, which I somewhat enjoy while watching the same window, but my dream-girl never appears. I make a mental note that Tuesdays are her days off. The next day I do the same, and the next day, and the next. The employees at the smoothie place know my order by heart after a week. One of them starts giving me her family discount after week two, which makes me think she’s hitting on me, but I kind of have my hands full right now._ _

__Her name is Meg and she asks me about Ghost, his name, his age, and if he likes peanut butter treats. I like answering these questions because they’re the only questions I really know the answers to._ _

__“Do you work in this area?” she asks me one day, to which I lie and say that I do._ _

__“You get to bring your dog to work with you? That’s so cool. You must have a really great job,” she replies cheerfully, but I know it’s more than just customer service skills._ _

__“Yeah, I’m a. . . I’m an attorney.”_ _

__“Wow, that’s fancy. You don’t dress like a lawyer.”_ _

__Glancing down at my jeans and wrinkled t-shirt, I chuckle anxiously. “Well, I only dress up when I have to go to court. . . which I don’t have to do today.”_ _

__“Alright,” she says suspiciously, but with a smile that tells me she doesn’t really care what my answers are, as long as I keep talking to her. Part of me wants to because she’s cute and actually likes me, but she looks young, like the teacher’s assistant I hooked up with my first semester at Chicago and while I may not remember growing up, my attractions have aged enough to where I would feel icky flirting with a girl who isn’t old enough to drink._ _

__As soon as she gives me my change, I step to the side to wait for my drink to be made, keeping Ghost on a tight leash beside me until he obediently sits at my side._ _

__“I want one _large_ Watermelon Blitz!” announces a young, high-pitched voice that draws my attention toward a slender girl barely taller than the counter. _ _

__Meg has to lean over to see her. “You sure you can drink a twenty-eight ounce smoothie all on your own?”_ _

__“What’s it to ya? My money’s good.” The little girl holds up a twenty-dollar bill like the statue of liberty holds her torch._ _

__“Alright,” replies the cashier in the same suspiciously friendly voice she does with me, making me feel a little insecure about how childish I seem._ _

__They exchange money and the girl shoves the change into the pocket of her navy-blue skirt. Actually, if it weren’t for that skirt, I may have assumed she were a boy given the grass stains on her white polo shirt and the way her brown hair is cropped short to her scalp._ _

__“Can I pet your dog?” she asks me._ _

__“Sure,” I answer, because Ghost has already decided for himself, standing up and rubbing his nose against her shoulder. She smiles, digging her small hands into Ghost’s fur to scratch his neck._ _

__It’s strange to watch, since Ghost looks big enough to swallow this girl in one bite, but she doesn’t seem the least bit afraid._ _

__“How old are you?” I ask before taking a glace around the store. “Where’s your folks?”_ _

__She sends me a quick glare, warning, “I’ve got a whistle, so don’t try nothing,” before averting her attention back to Ghost, laughing as his tongue swipes up the side of her face. Indeed, a plastic, lime-green whistle dangles from a spiral bracelet around her wrist._ _

__“Tropical Blast!” someone behind the counter calls out my order._ _

__“Bye, doggy,” the little girl coos while giving Ghost a hug around his neck. A giant dog with red eyes and sharp teeth is better with children than I am. Maybe that’s why I never wanted to be a part of my daughter’s life._ _

__I head out to my usual table, but out of my peripheral, I notice that my dream-girl isn’t in the diner, but outside of it, standing out on the sidewalk in her yellow checkered dress. Suddenly, I feel the same heat through my body that I would when Mom would catch me sneaking in after my curfew. Trying to be inconspicuous, I forget the table, turn on my heel and head the opposite direction, tugging a bit too hard on Ghost’s leash as I do. He rebels, backing up suddenly and flipping his head, right into the same little girl from inside. The gigantic smoothie tumbles out of her tiny hands and onto the concrete. The lid pops off and half the thick pink liquid projectiles upward, splattering the girl’s shirt and skirt in the process._ _

__“Oh shit,” I mutter as the girl’s jaw drops, because while I might not know much about kids, I do know that when something they love gets taken away, they cry._ _

__Well, this girl doesn’t so much cry as she seethes._ _

__“You A-hole! That was my smoothie!” she shouts in her sharp, squealy voice._ _

__“I’m sorry,” I frantically say, suddenly afraid of this girl and what tantrum she might throw right in front of me. “You can have mine.”_ _

__“Yours has bananas! I hate bananas!”_ _

__“I’m sorry!”_ _

__The girl stamps her feet, clenching and unclenching her hands like she’s trying not to punch me, and meanwhile Ghost is having a ball, lapping up the puddle of smoothie from the sidewalk._ _

__And then a voice echoes at a pitch that overpowers even the traffic on the road, yelling out the name, “RHAE!”_ _

__The little girl’s eyes bulge even bigger than mine as we both turn toward the voice of a very angry mother, only to see my dream-girl scowling at us from across the street, hands on her hips. What happens next is the most impressive reenactment of Frogger I’ve ever seen. Los Angeles traffic be damned, this woman weaves through honking cars like it’s an Olympic sport._ _

__“I told you _no smoothie_ ,” my dream-girl fumes, marching up the curb and taking the little girl by her whistle-bound wrist. “Who even gave you money for one?”_ _

__“I found it,” the girl whimpers, bottom lip out in the best puppy-dog face I’ve ever seen on a human._ _

__Leaning down to the girl’s eye level, my dream-girl glares daggers. “Have you been taking money off tables again?”_ _

__No response, just more puppy-dog eyes._ _

__My dream-girl seems satisfied to take that as an answer, and averts her menacing stare up at me, accompanied by a very accusatory index finger pointed at my chest._ _

__“If you ever go near my daughter again, I’m calling the police.”_ _

__With that, she turns, marching off toward the intersection and dragging the little girl (Rhae. . . that’s the name my dream-girl shouted, wasn’t it? I hadn’t simply imagined that?) right along with her._ _

__Ghost pulls on the leash as if wanting to go with them. A sudden rush of adrenaline causes me to want to do the same._ _

__“Hey!” I call after them, letting Ghost lead the way, as I have to nearly jog to match the petite woman’s long stride. “Hey, wait!”_ _

__At the light, dream-girl punches the walk button, but the light is still red._ _

__“Wait, please,” I plead, coming to a halt beside them, already out of breath from that being the first time I got close to running since leaving the hospital. “I just want to talk to you.”_ _

__“I have nothing to say to you,” she says without looking at me._ _

__While she’s trapped waiting for the light to change, I get a look at the nametag on her uniform._ _

__“Dany,” I say, speaking the name aloud as if I’ve said it a thousand times before._ _

__Finally, she turns, eyes finding mine, now less angry and more so distraught. “Please, just leave us alone. I haven’t told anyone. I’m not going to tell anyone.”_ _

__The light changes, and Dany hurriedly crosses the street. As she pulls Rhae along with her, the little girl glances back at me with dark grey eyes, a stark contrast to her mom’s mosaic blues, confusion etched upon her face, same as mine._ _

__This time, I do not follow her, as much as I want to._ _


	2. Chapter 2

“I haven’t told anyone. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

I’ve been muttering the same words at myself in the bathroom mirror for twenty minutes now. The very words my dream-girl, Dany, had said to me the day before. 

“I haven’t told anyone.” Tell anyone what?

“I’m not going to tell anyone.” Why would it matter to me if she tells it?

Did she mean that she is not going to tell anyone that I have a daughter with a boyish hair style and an affinity for banana-less smoothies? Did she mean she is not going to force me to be in Rhae’s life or pay her child support? I clearly have enough money to do so, so why would I care if Dany asks for it? Am I really so shitty of a man that I would rather hoard the fortune I’ve made working for Stark Incorporated than dish out a couple thousand each month to buy a snarky, little girl new polo shirts to stain? 

It’s possible. It’s what my mom had always worried about. Not that I would be a poor excuse for a man, but that if I were to ever get caught up with the Stark side of my family tree, I would get sucked into their vortex and never be the same. That must have been what happened. Mom died and I became a Stark, living a selfish, elitist lifestyle and paying no mind to any of my actual responsibilities. 

I find myself back at the diner. Not spying from across the street with Ghost, drinking a smoothie I only sort of like. I walk inside Lucille’s and take a seat, flagging over the first waitress I see. A young brunette. 

“What can I get for you?” she asks pleasantly. 

“Is Dany here?” 

She eyes me with a hint of suspicion before shaking her head.

“Please, I just really need to talk to her.”

“She’s really not here. Went home early today. Kid has the flu or something.”

“Oh.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“Do you know where she lives?”

Chuckling awkwardly, the girl replies, “I can’t really give out that information to a customer.”

“I know her.”

“How?”

I sigh, slumping back in the booth. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?” The girl seems interested now. Slipping her notepad back into her pocket and folding her arms across her chest, eyebrow cocked. 

“Would you believe me if I told you I was in a car accident a couple months ago and now can’t remember anyone or anything from the last ten years of my life, except for her?”

“No,” she immediately states, but her lips curl up enough to suggest she wishes something like that could be true. 

With my fingers, I comb back the portion of my hair which covers the still pink scar across my scalp, showing the young waitress. 

“Damn,” she whistles under her breath. “You don’t remember anything?”

“I remember Dany. Just nothing about her. I need to know how I know her, and I can only find that out if I talk to her.”

For a few moments, the waitress stands in silence, her mouth twisting left and right of her face like she’s contemplating some long math equation in her head, all while staring right at me. “I remember you.”

I sit up a bit straighter. “You do?”

“Uh huh. You were here, talking to her. Just outside.”

“Recently, or. . ?”

“About three months ago. I remember because it was the first week I started working here. And because you gave her an envelope full of cash. I mean, I didn’t see the cash, but I’ve seen enough movies to know what an envelope full of cash looks like. Kind of suspicious.”

“Why would I give her an envelope full of cash? What were we talking about?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did she seem like she hated me?”

Another moment’s contemplation. “She looked like when you’ve just gotten really bad news, but you don’t want to talk about it, so you just act like a bitch to all your coworkers the whole rest of the week.”

Really bad news? And an envelope full of cash? It all begins to add up in my head. I had told her I wanted nothing to do with Rhae and paid her off so that she wouldn’t try to disrupt my life. Or maybe I had gotten Dany pregnant again and didn’t want to have to lie about two kids, so I paid her off to have an abortion. It always worked out that way in the soap operas Mom would make me watch with her. 

“Here.” The waitress’s voice breaks me out of my thoughts as she slides a check in front of me, but instead of dollar amounts, what is scribbled on the green slip are directions. “I don’t know her address, but this’ll get you to her place. There’s a big red paint stain in the driveway. Very noticeable.” 

I pick up the check and read over the vague directions and judge that the house isn’t far from here. About the same distance away as my condo but in the opposite direction. 

“Thanks,” I say quickly before pulling a twenty out of my wallet and handing it to her without even thinking about why. It perplexes her a bit when I do so, but I’m too lost in my mind rehearsing over and over what it is I’m going to say to Dany when I show up at her house. 

It takes almost an hour to reach the house with the red paint stain in the driveway, a house that reminds me a lot of the last house I remember living in, the one my mother had raised me in all my life. A small fifties bungalow with a red door, long crab grass and stout palm trees growing in a front yard surrounded by an iron rod fence. In all this time spent walking, though, all I have come up with to say to Dany is, ‘Please don’t call the police.’ 

As I walk through the front gate and up the narrow path to the door, I nervously comb my fingers through my hair and smooth down the fabric of my t-shirt. Through the front door I can just barely make out the sound of a TV and the sensation of movement within the home. I cautiously give a quick knock and await the consequences anxiously. 

Moments later, the door is pulled open part way and my eyes are drawn downward at the sight of the little girl from the smoothie shop – Rhae, in a similar outfit to the stained school uniform she had been wearing the last time I saw her. 

My mouth goes dry as I search my brain for something to say, but I come up short. 

“You owe me a Watermelon Blitz. A _large_ one,” she eventually states, very mater-of-fact. 

“I know,” I reply quietly. “Is your mom here?”

Leaning her little head against the door frame, Rhae nods. “But she’s not in a good mood. I got suspended.”

“That’s not good.”

“You’re not my dad,” she tiredly snaps. 

I pause, then ask, “Who is your dad?”

She shrugs with a somber pout. “Some dead guy, I guess.”

“My dad’s a dead guy, too. And my mom.”

Smiling just slightly, Rhae asks, “Your mom’s a dead guy?”

I found myself smiling back. “Can you get your mom for me?”

“It’s your funeral,” she says with a heavy sigh before disappearing into the house and out of sight, leaving the front door cracked just a foot. 

From where I stand, I can hear the interaction between mother and daughter which only makes my anxiety grow. It’s no more than seventy degrees out but I’m sweating through my shirt. 

“There’s someone at the door!” I hear Rhae call out, and I can’t help but wonder why she doesn’t rat me out as the guy from the smoothie shop. 

I hear Dany’s voice, angry but somehow still pleasant to my ears. “You answered the door?! How many times do I have to tell you not to answer the door?! And why are there still toys all over the living room! Just because you aren’t going to school doesn’t mean you get to play around all day! Get cleaning, young lady!”

“You’re so _mean!_ ” Rhae shrieks. 

Just then, I hear footsteps moving closer and closer to the door until the thing swings open, and I am face to face with a very exasperated looking young woman, her silvery hair bunched in a messy pony pail behind her head. 

As soon as she registers that it’s me, her blue eyes turn from frustrated to afraid. 

“Please, can I talk to you for just one minute? And please don’t close the—" 

She slams the door shut without uttering a single word.

“Dany!” I call through the red-painted wood. “Please! I just want to know – I just need to know if she’s my daughter!”

I shut my eyes, feeling so completely drained that I have to rest my forehead on the door and take in a few hard breaths just to keep my heart from beating out of my chest. A minute passes of me simply listening to that faint TV sound before the door opens up again. I jump back and clear my throat, trying not to make it obvious that I’m falling apart right here on this woman’s porch. 

“What did you say?” Dany asks breathlessly. 

“Is she my daughter?” I ask meekly. 

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because I can’t remember.” Something about her standing before me with nothing but a look of confusion makes me feel more vulnerable than I have since waking up. I know her, and she knows me, and whether she hates me or not, having her finally be patient enough to let me catch my breath and will the tears from spilling out of my eyes feels like the greatest kindness of all. “I was in a car accident three months ago and now I can’t remember the last ten years of my life. But I had a dream while I was in the hospital, and you were in it. Everyone told me it was just a dream, not a memory, but then I saw you at the diner, and you recognized me. And then I found this—" I pull the locket from my jeans pocket and Dany’s expression suggests that she knows exactly what it is. “I found this in my apartment.”

Dany glances behind her before scooting out of the doorway and shutting the front door. I take a step back to accommodate her on the small brick porch, but we still stand close enough that I can catch the scent of cherry blossom perfume coming off her wool cardigan. 

“Are you fucking with me?”

My eyes roll, not at her question but at the fact that no one will ever believe me without proof. I show her the scar on my head, and she grimaces. 

Taking the locket from my hand, she says calmly, “You are not Rhae’s father. He died years ago.”

“Oh.” I don’t know if I feel relieved or disappointed. I suppose I feel neither and both all at the same time. Mostly, I’m worried that this means I won’t have an excuse to try to come back. “But you must mean something to me. . . somehow. Did we—"

“Your name is Jon, right?”

The question itself feels like a punch to the gut. All I can do is solemnly nod. 

“Jon. . .” she begins in a new sort of tone. Pity, I suppose. “I don’t know you. I met you for the first time less than six months ago. We’ve only had a few conversations and neither one was particularly pleasant for me.”

“Did I hurt you?”

She lets out a nervous chuckle – the closest thing to a genuine smile I’ve seen on her. “Not really.”

“But you hate me.”

“I don’t hate _you_ , I guess. I hate your boss. I thought you were here because of him. I thought he was making you come after me or something.” 

“My boss?”

“Robb Stark. You’re not still working for him, are you?”

My heart clenches at the name of my cousin being spoken with such animosity from my dream-girl’s lips. Robb had lied once again, telling me he had no idea who she could be. I answered Dany with a shrug, then clarified, “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I do there. I’m a lawyer, I guess, but I barely remember college let alone law school.” 

We lull into silence. I wish to think of something more to say so that she won’t leave me for good, but all I can think about is how sweet that cherry blossom scent is. 

“You really don’t remember anything?” she eventually asks, some intrigue to the question. 

“I remembered you. Well, not you. An image of you, really. You’re standing against a wall, holding a martini, and you’re in this black dress.”

Her gaze averts downward, and I get the impression like this rings a bell, but the air about her is melancholic. Her arms fold across her chest tightly. I change the subject, worried that making her sad will make her leave. 

“I also remembered my dog. Well, not really. I sort of—"

“What’s it like?” she asks suddenly, eyes back on me, eyebrow lifted.

“Well. . .” I let out a breath. “Did you ever see the movie 13 Going on 30?”

Slowly, a smile forms on her face like the one she’d used on the customers at Lucille’s, except real. She even laughs a little as she nods her head. 

“It’s like that, except it’s a horror movie.”

Her laugh grew, teeth showing and eyes squinting. For the first time, it actually makes my memory loss not seem like such a terrible burden, if it could in some way make Dany laugh. But then her laugh dies, we’re back to standing in silence, and she’s beginning to glance at the front door like she’s antsy to go back inside. 

“Can I tell you something really embarrassing?” I ask. 

“Okay.”

“I’m afraid of losing you.”

Confusion flickers across her face. 

“I know it sounds ridiculous because, in reality, we don’t know each other. But, from my perspective, you’re the only person in the world who I do know, and the thought of leaving here and never seeing you again. . . I don’t know. It just sucks.”

I hate how pathetic I sound and how uncomfortable she looks.

“It’s okay. I got what I came for. Thank you,” I tell her and begin to descend the porch steps. 

“Wait!” she calls out to me when I’m almost to the gate. In a moment she’s beside me, arms still across her chest, and I realize then that it’s because she’s cold. “Promise me that you aren’t working for Robb Stark anymore.”

I take a beat to contemplate the question. It only seems strange because in my mind, I have never worked for Robb, nor have I ever wanted to work for Robb or any other Stark. I have no idea if Robb even expects me to return to whatever it is that I do at his office, but I suppose I have never officially quit or been fired. 

“I promise.”

“Good.” She lets her arms drop to her sides, hands slipping into the pockets of her sweater. “I was about to make dinner. Spaghetti Thursdays. I always make too much, if you want to join.”

Another great kindness that I feel so utterly unworthy of, but I selfishly nod my head and follow Dany back up the porch steps and in through her red front door. 

While the inside of Dany’s home looks much different from the one I grew up in, the feeling is the same. The warmth from the lightly stained carpet and large furniture one wouldn’t have to drape blankets over to make comfortable. The musty smell from the wood-paneled wall stretching the entire living area of the home and the seventies kitchen cabinets. The homey feeling of the floral wallpaper in the dining room and the colorful drawings stuck with magnets to the refrigerator, all with the name “Rhae Targaryen” scribbled at the bottom in marker. There’s a sliding glass door in the living room leading out to a back yard littered with various balls, toys, and one of those huge trampolines I would have given my right hand to have as a child. 

“I like your house,” I tell Dany as she fills a pot with water. 

She sends me a glance like she doesn’t believe me. “It was my great-uncle’s. He left it to me, and I haven’t really been able to change a thing about it.”

“I like it this way. I don’t actually know what happened with my mom’s house after she died. Maybe she left it to me, too.” 

“Is that something you can’t remember?” She brings the pot to the stove and turns on the gas flame. Before I can answer, she’s turning her head toward the hallway and shouting, “Rhae! Come set the table for dinner!”

A loud “Ugh!” echoes down the hallway in response. 

Leaning against the counter, feeling a mix of awkwardness at invading another family’s home and comfort at being in a home that seems like an actual home, I say, “Yeah, I can’t remember her dying.”

“So, you thought. . .” Dany eyes me curiously as Rhae slinks through the kitchen and while she gathers up utensils from the drawer, Dany says to her, “Clear all the stuff off the table first and wipe it down with the cleaner under the sink.”

With an exasperated sigh, Rhae looks up at her mother and exclaims, “But you never make me do that part!”

“That’s because I always do it, but we have company right now. Don’t you want to show off how mature you are?”

“When old guys say little girls are mature it means they wanna kidnap ‘em.”

“I’m not a kidnapper,” I say quickly, as if that’s in dispute. 

Dany ignores me though, looking intently at her daughter. “Have you been watching America’s Most Wanted again after I’ve gone to sleep?”

“No!” shouts Rhae defensively. 

I watch as the two silently stare at one another as if they’re playing a game of mental chicken before Dany finally sighs and points toward the dining room. “Just go clear the table, Rhae.” 

The little girl storms off in the direction of her mother’s finger and only then does Dany regain her friendly demeanor and turn to me. “Do you remember being that difficult when you were nine?”

“I was worse.”

“I’m not a monster,” she insists. “She’s just such a handful sometimes. She was suspended from school today for fighting with some boy at recess. She pushed him on the ground and twisted his arm behind his back. That’s what I get for letting her watch Miss Congeniality. It’s the third time this year that she’s been suspended, and the principal says that if it happens again, they’ll expel her. Expelled from a public school in Los Angeles? I didn’t think that was even possible. Thank God the school year is almost over. . . but then I’ll have day care to worry about.”

From the dining room, Rhae yells, “I told you, I don’t wanna go to day care! Day care is for babies!”

I thought Dany would yell something back about how nine-year-olds can’t stay at home all by themselves during the Summer, but instead she lets it go, eyes cast down at the linoleum floor. She looks defeated, and hopeless, and I wonder if my mom ever looked like that when I wasn’t in the room. 

Soon, Dany turns to the pantry and retrieves a box of noodles. I watch her pour the contents out onto a long piece of paper towel and begin to break the long sticks in half. 

“I can help you,” I tell her and then we’re both breaking noodles side by side. It’s nice for a while. It feels like I was meant to be here from the start, but then my thoughts get in the way, telling me how ridiculous that is. Dany isn’t my family. We’re nothing to each other, and yet I’ve been forcing myself into her life and now into her home, whereas Robb is my family and I’ve essentially sided with an outsider against him. I used to think I was loyal, but maybe that’s not who I am anymore. 

As Dany drops handfuls of dry noodles into the bubbling water on the stove, I ask her, “Why would you think Robb would send someone to come after you?”

She turns to me like she’s taken aback by the question, or maybe she just doesn’t know how to answer it because she simply stands there silently for some time until Rhae shoves in between us and lifts herself up onto the counter. 

“Use the step stool!” Dany tries, but Rhae is already pulling dishes out of the overhead cabinet with her knees firmly planted atop the counter. 

When the little girl twists to hop off the counter, I put my hands up, preparing for a stack of plates to come crashing to the floor, but Rhae sends me a pointed look and firmly states, “I can do it by myself.”

And she does it by herself. As terrifying as it is for me to watch, she jumps down from the counter with three breakable plates in hand and never drops one. Meanwhile, Dany’s focus is back on the cooking pot, staring down at the bubbles while she slowly stirs the pasta. 

“Why did I have that locket?” I ask her quietly. 

Again, she appears to not know how to answer. “I don’t know. I gave it to you, I guess.”

“Why? And that other waitress at the diner said I gave you an envelope full of money.”

Turning to me sharply, Dany quiets her voice and says, “Maybe you losing your memory was a good thing. Have you thought of that? Because there are a lot of things I wish I could forget, and the first step to that is not talking about them.”

I swallow. “I’m sorry.”

With a heavy sigh, Dany shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that you getting your head split open was a good thing. I just—"

“I’m just worried that I’m a bad person,” I interrupt. “Or, that I was a bad person. I get these glimpses of who I supposedly was, and I don’t like him. I don’t trust anyone who claims they were important to me, I hate my apartment, and if I knew what the heck my job entailed, I’d probably hate that too. I hate that my mom’s headstone says Mother, Daughter, Sister instead of a snarky Oscar Wilde quote.”

“You’re missing ten years?” asks Dany, to which I nod. “Ten years ago, I was just out of high school and running away from home to try and make it as a professional singer in the heart of LA. That would be my last memory if I were in your shoes. But, _nine_ years ago, I was married to a guy who couldn’t stay out of prison and giving birth to a child I would have to raise all by myself. I’m a waitress at a crappy diner and taking weekend classes to become a nurse. And I can’t remember the last time I sang a song outside of the shower. Ten years is a long time for priorities to change.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t like your life if you suddenly woke up today after ten years had passed?”

She smiles wistfully. “I mean, this certainly isn’t what I envisioned for myself, but eighteen-year-old-me wouldn’t hate this life. I always wanted to be a mother, and I would have Rhae.”

“But you wouldn’t remember her.”

“That doesn’t matter. She’s my daughter”

I think of Ygritte while I say, “But how can you love someone who you don’t remember?”

“Love isn’t a memory. It’s a feeling. I know that even if I had no memories of her, I would still feel the same love when I look in her eyes.”

It’s a tough pill to swallow, not just that it makes me believe I never really loved Ygritte or even my extended family, but also that what Dany just described sounds a lot like how I feel about her.

“And for the record,” she adds. “It isn’t completely true that all the conversations I’d had with you were unpleasant. The few times we spoke, I actually thought you were kind.”

The dining table has scratches and marker stains on it, but Dany puts down colorful placemats that make it all seem chaotically cohesive. After Dany piles spaghetti onto Rhae’s plate, she proceeds to do the same with mine and her own. She repeats this process with the broccoli. 

“I don’t like broccoli!” Rhae announces. 

“Too bad,” Dany replies, plopping a second spoonful onto the girl’s plate. 

I don’t like broccoli either, but I’d been eating like a nineteen-year-old since moving out of Robb’s house and my body is definitely yearning for actual nutrients. 

“Watch this,” I tell Rhae after Dany spoons a helping of broccoli onto my own plate. I take the shaker of parmesan cheese and dole out a mountain of white goodness all over the pile of vegetables. 

“Oh jeez,” Dany mutters while Rhae giggles beside her. 

I hand Rhae the shaker and she imitates my action. 

“Thank you so much for teaching my daughter how to make vegetables unhealthy,” Dany says sarcastically. 

My cheeks tint pink, but Rhae is smiling like a fiend as she scoops up a spoonful of 20% broccoli, 80% powdered cheese and stuffs it into her mouth with joy. Maybe I’m better with kids when I know for a fact that they aren’t my kids.

“This is so delicious,” I say while I eat.

When Dany thanks me, that too sounds sarcastic. 

“I can’t cook anything,” I add. “Cereal, I guess, but I can never seem to get the Cheerios to milk ratio exactly right.”

“My dad was the best cook in the whole world,” Rhae states. “Right, Mom?”

“He was certainly better than me.”

With a mouth full of spaghetti, Rhae looks me in the eyes and says, “You have girl hair.”

“Um, I have Lord of the Rings hair. _You_ have boy hair.”

“I have Stranger Things hair.” 

“Is that a band?”

Dany explains, “For years she’s refused to let me comb out her hair, so when she got lice last month, I told her I would either have to comb out the bugs or shave her head. I assumed that she would choose the comb, but then she went and hacked off all her hair with safety scissors while I was doing laundry. It was so bad the lady at SuperCuts had to just buzz it all down to the scalp.” 

I laugh, but Rhae looks none too pleased. 

“Why do you keep saying that story?! You’re a liar!” she shouts angrily. 

“Hey, don’t yell at me. Eat your food,” Dany replies sternly. 

Rhea jumps off of the phone books she’d been sitting on and pushes over her chair, sending it clamoring hard against the linoleum, all the while shouting, “I hate you and I hate spaghetti!” 

She’s gone after that, running at a sprint through the kitchen, down the hallway, and into a room before a door slams shut so hard it rattles the walls. 

“Sorry,” mumbles Dany with a look of humiliation as she stands and scoops up the overturned chair. 

I tell her it’s alright, but she doesn’t seem to agree, and in a moment, she’s gone as well, off to take care of Rhae. 

Alone in the dining room, I take an awkward glance around and try to pretend I can’t hear Rhae shouting at her mom. Hanging on the wallpapered walls are various framed photographs. Some of them look like old family pictures and others look brand new, glossy and colorful; Rhae’s school pictures mostly, and one portrait of her and Dany. No where do I see any pictures of them with a man who could be Rhae’s father. 

Before I can think too hard on it, though, Dany and Rhae are returning to the table. Rhae climbs up on her phonebooks and drops her elbow on the table beside her plate, resting the side of her head in her hand like she’s just come home from a long day at the factory. 

“Hey,” I whisper to her before passing her a twenty-dollar bill. 

Her eyes light up until Dany sees and snatches it up. 

“Hey!” Rhae exclaims. 

“I owe her a smoothie,” I explain nervously. 

“She doesn’t get smoothies when she’s grounded,” replies Dany, handing me back my money. “And she certainly doesn’t get cash.”

Rhae wears a pout so pronounced I think she is going to actually start crying, until Dany says, “You can have ice cream, though. Cookies and cream?”

The young girl gives a solemn nod to the consolation prize, and Dany turns back into the kitchen. 

“Where’s your dog?” Rhae asks me. 

“At home. Hopefully destroying everything.”

“You should bring him next time.”

“I don’t think I’ll be coming over anymore.”

“Oh.” She seems disappointed. “What about my smoothie?”

I hum under my breath before tentatively suggesting that I could bring her a smoothie one day. 

As Dany walks back to the table with a bowl of cookies and cream ice cream in hand, Rhae exclaims “Your friend is gonna take me to get a smoothie!”

Quickly, I say, “That’s not what I said.”

“I’ll tell Nan she can take you to get a smoothie this weekend,” Dany tells her daughter while placing the bowl in front of her. 

“Nan? Why do I have to stay with Nan?”

“You know why. Because I’ll be in class in the afternoons on Saturday and Sunday.” 

“Why can’t I just stay home by myself?!”

“Because you’re not old enough.”

“But I hate Nan! She’s boring!”

Dany threw a stern look at her daughter. “That is a very rude thing to say.”

“It’s not rude if it’s true!”

“It’s especially rude if it’s true.”

I clear my throat awkwardly before making a hesitant proposal. “I could watch her this weekend.” 

Immediately I can tell that suggestion was a mistake because Dany’s head instantly begins to shake while Rhae’s eyes bulge and a smile grows large on her face. 

“And you can bring your dog!” she announces. 

“No,” Dany states firmly. “We have a babysitter and she’s very cheap, so that’s not necessary.” 

“Well I’m free,” I reply, which again, turns out to be a mistake. 

“And he has a dog!” shouts Rhae.

“No,” Dany stated again, this time at her daughter. “What happened to America’s Most Wanted? You want some guy we barely know spending time alone with you?”

“Mom. . . he has a dog.”

Dany lets out an exasperated sigh. 

Finally, my slow mind catches on and I say, “Oh, crap. You know what? I just realized that I have a thing this weekend. I’m, uh. . . going to Knott’s Berry Farm, so I can’t come over after all.”

Rhae’s eyes go wide again, but this time it isn’t excitement, but incredulous rage. She once again stands from her chair and cries at her mother, “This is your fault! Now he’s going to Knott’s Berry Farm without me!” 

And then she’s off once more, stomping through the house until the same slam of the door makes me jump a foot from my chair. 

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “That was my fault.”

Dany sighs and instead of following her daughter, she simply slides the bowl of ice cream in front of her and begins eating it herself. 

After a couple of bites, she pensively says, “Knott’s Berry Farm? She’s been trying to get me to take her to Knott’s Berry Farm all year.”

I drop my shoulders in a sulk and mutter out another apology as Dany adopts the same posture her daughter had a minute ago. Elbow on the table and the side of her head in her hand. 

“Do you live close?” she eventually asks. 

“Kind of.”

Another deep sigh. “Maybe you could bring your dog over on Saturday after I get home, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Yeah, okay. I don’t have anything going on. What time?”

I think I replied a bit too eagerly, because Dany eyes me with suspicion. “Six should be good. I feel bad for you, you know.”

“Oh?” My face falls. 

“Yeah. If you’re volunteering to spend time in this house, shit must be really bad where you’re coming from.”

“Oh.” I shrug and offer a small smile. “Just lonely, I guess. I like it here.”

“Okay,” she breathes with a little chuckle of disbelief before averting her eyes down to the ice cream she’s been absentmindedly swirling her spoon around. I find myself staring at her and not simply because there’s nothing else to look at. I want to ask her again about the locket, and about the envelope full of money, and what her history is with my cousin. I want to ask her what I said to her those times she thought I was kind. But none of that seems all that important at this moment. While so much will go unresolved tonight, I have never felt such absolution. 

* * * * *

When I was twelve, my mom took me to the Los Angeles Zoo and I remember wondering what all the animals there must think of the humans wandering around their prison freely and excitedly while they sat in enclosures that would be their homes until the day they die. For a time, I thought the tigers, lions, and the bears were happy to see me, when really, they were just wondering how the hell I managed to not be one of them. 

That’s how I feel walking through the offices of Stark Incorporated. Each person I pass, from the security guard at the front desk of the building to the fortieth secretary, knows who I am and jumps up from their desks to greet me, but they all have these wild-eyed expressions like they’d just ran a marathon and still had another mile to go. No one walked anywhere, they all flew in and out of offices and all around the cubical stations. Buzzing and beeping and whirling of all sorts of machines running all around me and bright white lights beating down on me from above. They were all happy prisoners and I was coming to visit them.

“Where’s Robb?” I ask someone and receive almost the same response as the last person I spoke to. 

“Jon! Oh my gosh, how are you? We’ve been thinking about you, and we all can’t wait until your back here at the grindstone.” 

I force a smile, thank them, and move along to ask another person where Robb is. 

Eventually, the ninth receptionist I come by happens to be the correct one. She walks me through a sixth office suite to an office with no one in it. 

“Is this Robb’s office?” I ask. 

“No, it’s yours,” replies the receptionist. “Mr. Stark will meet you here shortly. He’s just finishing up another meeting in his office.”

“Okay.”

The young woman turns to leave, but I catch her with a question. “This is an odd question, but why haven’t you been bombarding me with pleasantries and well wishes?”

“Oh, because I’m new. We’ve never met,” she states sweetly and mater-of-fact. 

As she goes back to her desk, I note how uncomfortable it is to feel more comfortable around people I’ve only just met than people I’ve supposedly known for years. I shut the door to block out the noise and take a look around, but the only personal items in the entire room are a set of University Diplomas hanging on the walls. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that I actually did get my B.S. in Anthropology from Chicago University, like I had intended to do as a new college student. The other is a Juris Doctorate from USC. Suma cum lade. 

I take a seat behind the large dark-wood desk, leaning back in the cushy, leather swivel chair. A few documents lay atop the desk and I pick one up. Department of the Labor Commissioner versus Stark Incorporated. Request for Production of Documents. It means nothing to me, so I drop it back on the desk with a sigh. The page must have hit the computer mouse, though, because the screen saver flashes on and it’s a picture of me in a ridiculously fancy suit standing with my arm around a very elegantly dressed Ygritte. Well, I cared enough about her to make her my work-computer’s screen saver. Then again, my screen saver on the Windows XP Mom bought me for my dorm room was a picture of Weezer, so I suppose that means I loved Ygritte at least as much as I loved Weezer when I was nineteen. 

My stomach begins to feel sick as I sit in this chair. I’d spent so much time after awaking from my coma trying to remember whatever I could about my life, but now I find that I don’t particularly want to remember. I don’t want to be sitting here behind this desk and in this office because I’m afraid that it will trigger something in me that will make me remember why I willingly spent every day here for years. 

Just as I’m getting up to leave, the office door suddenly swings open and I am greeted by Robb in a sophisticated suit and tie, his auburn hair styled with gel as not to let the curls get too rowdy. 

“Jon,” he exclaims like my name is its own form of hello. “I’m glad you came.”

“You sent your driver to my apartment at eight in the morning to bring me here.”

“You didn’t have to get in the car.”

He has me there. I suppose I’m not as smart as the diplomas suggest. Robb motions his hand for me to sit back down in the swivel chair I’d just stood from. He in turn sits down in one of the secondary chairs placed on the opposite side of the desk. “Normally, at eight in the morning you’ve already been here for two hours.”

“Jesus. Sounds like a nightmare.”

Robb chuckles one of those chuckles that says he’s really more offended than amused but better to brush it off than have a real conversation. “I take it you still haven’t regained any of your memories?”

“No, but I think I’m figuring things out.”

“Well, we miss you here. Everyone has been really scrambling to get things done without you. You’ve been a real asset ever since you started. I’ve been thinking that—"

“Why did I start working here?” I interrupt. 

Another one of those chuckles and then Robb answers, “You’re a Stark. This is Stark Incorporated. It’s the family business.” 

I shake my head. “I don’t think I would have ever wanted to work in a place like this. An office, I mean. I never understood how people could sit at a desk all day wearing uncomfortable clothes and sucking up to rich assholes they secretly hate.”

Another chuckle, but this time it’s real amusement. “You’ve looked around your apartment, right? You’re one of those rich assholes everyone sucks up to. But the reason I wanted to speak with you, besides, of course, to ask how you’re doing—"

“You haven’t asked me how I’m doing.”

“—I think it’d be best if you came back. Obviously, though, you wouldn’t be able to resume your formal position, but I don’t really like the idea of you having nothing to do all day. You should be someplace familiar – Or, someplace that can remind you of familiarity. The doctor said you might not ever regain your memories. If that’s the case here. . .”

I stop listening, losing myself in the thought that never regaining my memories doesn’t sound half bad. It’s a fresh start, like Dany said.

When Robb’s mouth stops moving, I reply, “No. I’m not going to work here.”

Expression turning sour, Robb asks me to repeat myself and I do. 

Standing up, I clarify, “If I never regain my memories, I should probably start planning for a new future, right? Figuring out what I want my life to look like. Maybe go back to school to learn all of the things I forgot.”

“Jon, don’t be ridiculous. You shouldn’t have to do that. I won’t give you any work that you won’t be able to handle as you are, and we can keep you on the same salary.”

I rise, walking past him and out the office door, but Robb follows closely behind. 

“Just because you think you’re a teenager again doesn’t mean you can act like one, Jon. This is the real world. You need a job. You need money. You need your family.”

I stop and turn to him. “I’m not trying to be ungrateful when I say that I never envisioned myself working here, but it’s the truth. Maybe this feeling of wanting to get as far from this place as possible _is_ a memory. Maybe I’ve wanted to quit this job for a long time but never got up the courage to do it. I know that I’m not a teenager, which is why I’m not going to do something just because you think it’s what’s best for me. It’s my life. I may not know it very well, but it’s still mine.”

Before I can turn away, Robb takes me by the shoulders. “Okay, okay, okay,” he repeats in a low, calming voice. “Okay, Jon. You’re right. I’m sorry. You don’t have to work here if you don’t want to. I know this place can feel like a fucking insane asylum. I want you to be happy, but I also worry about you. This isn’t easy for me either, alright? Believe it or not, I actually consider you to be my best friend.”

Shaking my head at myself, I tell him I’m sorry for being a prick. 

“It’s okay, Jon,” he assures. “Look, come over for dinner tomorrow night. Eddie misses you. Talisa is making Thai food.”

“I don’t like Thai food.”

Robb laughs. “You fucking _love_ Thai food, Jon.”

I end up laughing too, but a moment later, a man of similar age to ourselves hurries up and begins talking business with Robb. I can’t understand what it is they’re saying, something about stock projections, whatever that means, but all the while, this new man’s eyes keep wandering to me like he’s suspicious of my existence beside them. 

“Jon, this is Theon,” Robb eventually introduces. “I assume you don’t remember him.”

The man, Theon, shakes my hand in a dutiful fashion, but there is something about the way he keeps looking at me through his heavy brow that disturbs me. I decide immediately that I don’t like him. 

As he goes, my gaze follows, suddenly suspicious of him myself. 

“You don’t remember him, do you?” Robb asks me, noticing my intrigued stare. 

“No. But he seems. . . creepy.”

He slaps a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure all the women in the building would agree with you on that. He’s just my. . . personal assistant of sorts. Takes care of the stuff I don’t have the time or the stomach for. So, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“I can’t come over tomorrow night. I have plans.”

“Plans? What plans?”

“Just. . .” I shake my head and give a nonchalant shrug. “Just, plans. What about my mom’s house? Did she leave the house to me?”

Robb does that thing where he looks momentarily befuddled before re-remembering that I don’t remember anything. “You sold the house when you had to put your mom into that memory care facility. You said you wanted her in the best place in the city. You took really good care of her.”

The irony. . . that a brain injury is preventing me from remembering my mother ever having a brain condition that caused her severe memory problems. Early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s genetic, so I hear. Something to look forward to in the future – all the memories I have left leaving me as well.

* * * * *

Even though we set off early that Saturday afternoon, Ghost and I still reach the house with the red paint stain in the driveway fifteen minutes late, but it isn’t our faults that there are so many great places for a dog to stop and pee between my condo and Dany’s house. 

As soon as the front door opens, I urge Ghost semi-successfully to sit thoughtfully by my side, but even so, Dany’s eyes just about bug out of her head at the sight of him, his massive head reaching my chest in his sitting position. 

“Jesus,” she breathes incredulously, shaking her head at me. “He wasn’t that big in front of the smoothie place.”

While Dany looks as though she hasn’t slept since I saw her last, all I can do is smile at the fact that I get to see her again at all. “Hi,” is all I can think of to say. 

“Hi.” She sizes me and Ghost up reluctantly, but the math she’s doing in her head is soon interrupted by none other than Rhae, dressed in a Dodgers shirt two sizes too big, shoving through her mother and the door frame to pounce on Ghost. 

“Rhae, don’t do that!” Dany scolds nervously, but Ghost simply twists his neck in her arms for a better angle at which to lap at the girl’s little face. 

“He’s good with kids,” I assure Dany. 

After a few moments, her terrified expression fades and she steps aside to let me and the beast in. 

“We walked like six miles to get here so he’ll probably just nap for most of the evening,” I say as I unhook Ghost from his leash. 

Hushed but pointed, Dany warns, “If that thing eats my child, I will murder you.”

Rhea squeals beside us as she tugs on Ghost’s collar. “Come see my room, Dog!”

Alone in the foyer with Dany, my mouth is suddenly dry, and my palms wet. “So, how are you?” I ask. 

“Oh, I don’t know. . . the same.” 

I notice that she’s wearing maroon colored scrubs under her black sweater. “How was class?”

“The same. How are you?”

“I would say _the same_ , but I don’t remember what that is.”

She smiles at that. “No new memories?”

“Well, I had a dream last night that I took a dump in the chips rack at a 7-Eleven. That could be a memory, but I sure hope not.”

Scrunching her nose, Dany giggles from her chest but composes herself quickly as if it’s somehow against the rules to be jovial. “Look. . . this is awkward. I don’t know why I asked you to come here. I don’t even know why I let you into my house the other day. It’s ridiculous. I would have called this off had I gotten your phone number—"

“You can have my—"

“—Since her father left, I haven’t once brought a man into this house who wasn’t a plumber, and yet you’ve already met my daughter, eaten dinner with us, and now you’re bringing your dog over for an interspecies playdate. Am I really this starved for adult interaction?”

The question sounds rhetorical, so rather than tackle it, I ask, “So, you’re into plumbers then? Because. . . I know my way around a plunger.”

Her cheeks pinken as she tries not to smile. “Is that what this is then?” The seriousness in which she tries to present the question tells me this one is not rhetorical. When I reply only with a questioning look, she clarifies. “The other day, you asked me if I was important to you. Did you think that we had a thing? Is that why you’re here? To see if you have feelings for me?”

Digging my hands into my pockets, I take a gulp and say, “I thought that. . . Well, when I saw you at Lucille’s and realized that my dream of you was a memory, I thought that meant that. . . I mean, I’m not very spiritual, but I thought that maybe it meant you were what I was thinking about during the accident, and that’s why I remembered you and no one else. At first, I thought it was because I loved you. When I saw your reaction to me, I thought I remembered you because I’d hurt you in some significant way. When I found that locket, I thought I remembered you because of Rhae. Now. . . I have no idea.”

“If you’re here because you’re lonely and lost, then I understand that, but if you’re here because of some illogical romantic fantasy brought on by a near death experience, you’re only going to be disappointed. I’m a single mother. That’s it. That’s my life – my whole world. I don’t have friends. I don’t have any hobbies. I haven’t watched a Rated R movie in years. Rhae gets all of me. Every single piece.”

“You’re not just a single mother, though,” I counter. “You’re also going to be a nurse.”

She lets her smile slip, and maybe I don’t fully understand why I’m so drawn to her, or this house, or even to Rhae, but I know that any person, man, woman or other, would be insane not to be drawn to that smile. 

“Hey!” shouts that familiar high-pitched shout that averts both of our head down at Rhae who is wearing a suspiciously sweet grin. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Ghost.”

“Okay. I’m gonna make him a vest!” 

Rhae bounces back down the hall and it takes all of thirty seconds for Dany’s face to contort in sudden realization and bolt off after her daughter. I cautiously follow the sound of scolding and soon find Dany pulling scissors and a bed sheet out of Rhae’s little hands. A short argument ensues that ends with Rhae screaming that she hates her mother while running into her closet and slamming the door shut. Dany throws her hands up, and Ghost looks just as perplexed as I do. 

“You going to just stay in there all night?” Dany asks the closet door but receives only silence in response. “You can’t have Chef Boyardee if you’re sitting in the closet.” Again, silence. “Ghost came all the way over here to play with you and you’re not being a very good hostess, Rhae.” All she gets is silence. “Alright, well I guess Jon is just going to take Ghost home, then.”

Just then, Rhae lets out a sharp, piercing shriek that engulfs the entire house like nails on a chalkboard broadcasted over a megaphone. Dany jumps, Ghost’s ears shoot straight into the air, and my brain begins to punch at the inside of my skull. For at least a full minute, the scream goes uninterrupted and when it finally ceases, we are granted only a moments reprieve before Rhae belts out another. Same pitch, same volume, same nauseating intensity. The only difference is that this time, to accompany the shriek, are the sounds of kicking against the closet walls and the breaking of anything that could possibly be in there with her. 

For the first few minutes, Dany tries shouting at Rhae to quiet down, but I doubt the girl would even hear her mother’s voice over the sound of her own screaming. Eventually, Dany resigns, throws up her hands, and leaves the bedroom with a look of hopeless irritation. Ghost follows, anxious to get away from ground zero of the worst sound ever produced by nature, and I’m right on his heels. 

We end up in the kitchen, and I find Dany with her forehead pressed against the freezer door. 

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Dany looks at me then, her eyes pink and angry. “Then you can leave. No one’s keeping you here.”

“I want to help.”

“There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. She’ll only stop when she stops and not a second sooner.”

“This happens a lot?”

Leaning her back against the refrigerator, she closes her eyes and doesn’t open them again until she’s taken a few long breaths in and out. Even so, she looks so far on the edge of crying that the reverberating screeches from the other room seem to fade into the distance and all I can here are Dany’s subtle sniffles. 

“When I was little,” she begins, “I was the best child. I never cried. Never threw tantrums. Never even disagreed with my parents. My brother Viserys was the difficult one, and I never wanted to be like him. That’s not to say that I was never angry, or sad, or overwhelmed. I just internalized it all so that no one had to suffer my misery except myself. Rhae, though. . . she just _explodes_. And everything I do is wrong.”

Without anything competent to say, I find myself just standing in front of her, watching her in her forlorn state. I once more feel like an intruder. I’ve stepped into someone else’s life and someone else’s family without a plan or even a real reason. All I want in this moment is to help Dany, but there’s nothing I can do except stand here. 

Cautiously, I ask the first thing that pops into my head. “Have you thought about. . . taking her to see someone?”

The eyeroll Dany gives makes me want to take back the question immediately. “They just want to medicate her, and I’m not going to be one of those parents who just dopes her kid up every day so she’ll be more manageable for that asshole principal at that dump of an Elementary school. She’s smart, and she’s creative, and she’s so funny. She just. . .”

“Explodes?”

As she nods, the landline on the counter rings, causing her to sigh like she knows who’s calling. Even though I can’t hear the other voice on the phone, I can tell it’s about Rhae.

“Hi, Nan. Yeah, I know. . .” Dany says into the receiver. “Everything’s fine. She’s just. . . Yeah. . . Yeah, she usually tires out after. . . Yeah. . . Alright. Sorry again. . . Bye.”

Before she can put the phone down, there’s a hard wrapping at the front door. Ghost immediately jumps to attention and rushes over to sniff at the crack between door and doorframe. By the dreadful expression on Dany’s face, it appears she knows who this is as well. I hold Ghost back by his collar while Dany answers the door. 

The first thing I hear is an angry male voice asking, “What the hell is going on in there?!”

Dany is quick to apologize in a very rehearsed way. “I’m sorry. She’s having a tantrum, but she’ll calm down before too long.”

“Before too long?!” the man asks. From behind Dany, I don’t have a great look at him, but I can tell that he’s tall and only somewhat older than I look which I suppose would put him in his thirties. “Sounds like someone’s being murdered in there!”

“Well, I assure you that the only thing being murdered in this house is my patience, but thank you for stopping by. It’s always a pleasure.”

“Are your ears broke, lady?! If you don’t shut her up, I’m gonna have to call the cops, alright?”

Even from behind her, I can tell Dany’s switch just got flipped. Her back tenses and her arms go to fold across her chest defiantly. “You’re really going to call in a noise complaint at seven o’clock on a Saturday?”

“I’ve got kids next door who—"

“Oh, you’ve got kids? What’s that like?”

“It’s great! Because I know how to parent them so that they’re not little brats all the fucking time!”

“What did you just say?” seethes Dany and she even takes a step toward the guy. 

Having firsthand experience as to how scary Dany is when she feels threatened, I fear for what she may do next if this guy doesn’t shut up. 

“You need to go in there and teach that kid some fucking—"

“You need to get the hell off my porch and go fuck yourself!” 

And right here is when I decide that the only way to make sure someone doesn’t die tonight is to step in. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” I say coolly, pulling Dany back into the house and stepping in front of her, all the while this man on the porch shouts obscenities at her. Ghost has started barking, and I block the doorway to keep him and Dany from charging. 

“Hey, man. Calm down,” I say to the guy like he’s the jock at a college party who got too drunk and now wants to fight everyone.

“Who the fuck are you?” the guy asks like we’re standing on his porch and not Dany’s.

“I’m Jon.”

“Well, Jon, tell that bitch back there to—"

“Eat a dick!” shouts Dany from behind me. 

Soon it’s all shouting, and screaming, and barking, and I’m right in the center of it all, taking it all into my ears until it wraps around my brain like a lasso and tightens like a noose. Even my scar begins to throb. Just when I think I’m a second away from collapsing in pain right there in the middle of a verbal brawl, the crazed man in front of me shouts something at Dany that flips the switch in me. 

“I’m gonna fuck you up, sweetheart, and show that little fucking brat what happens when—" I don’t even let him finish before I’m shoving him back with so much force that he stumbles right over the edge of the porch and just barely catches his balance enough to stay on his feet, but before he can right himself completely, I’m off the porch too, grabbing the front of his shirt in my left fist while sending my right barreling into his gut once, then twice. When I release him from my grip, that’s all it takes for him to lose his balance and drop to the grass like a sack of wet laundry. 

I let him roll onto his hands and knees and cough a few times against the grass before I grab him once more by the collar to force his gaze to mine. 

With a glower so intense my face hurts to look so menacing, I warn, “If you ever so much as look at either one of them again, I’m going to let my dog rip your fucking throat out. Got it?” 

Once he nods, I let go, but as soon as I do, the asshole jumps forward, hooking me around the middle and pummeling me to the ground like I’m a quarterback with the ball. While my memories of being on my high school wrestling team are fairly vivid, what I channel more in that moment are my prepubescent years when my friends and I would bet snacks against who would win in a no-holds-barred fight in the alleyway behind our houses. Boys will be boys.

I can just faintly make out Dany shouting my name from the porch, but the only thing that breaks me out of this testosterone-fueled brawl of fists, elbows, and knees is the sharp snarl and rumbling growl followed by a series of crazed barks from Ghost, so focused in my ears that I know without looking that he’s run up beside us. 

Even though I had been being dramatic when I said Ghost would rip someone’s throat out, I don’t actually want to commit dog-ocide right here on Dany’s front lawn, so I kicked her asshole neighbor off of me and scrambled to my feet to take Ghost by his collar. It’s a good thing I do too, because as soon as I’ve separated myself from the object he perceives as a threat, Ghost is trying desperately to break free of my grip, jumping toward the neighbor with a menacing snarl. 

“Jesus Christ,” the neighbor slurs as he picks himself up off the ground. “That’s not a dog, man. That’s a monster.”

After ordering Ghost to sit five times, he finally complies, but his teeth remain bared and his throat continues to rumble. 

As the neighbor moves toward the gate, he lets out an exhausted sigh and says, “Just keep it fucking down, alright?”

Watching him limp off down the sidewalk and up to his own house, it doesn’t even register in my mind how silent everything is now until I’m looking back at Dany who stands in the doorway with a look of shock, and confusion, and something else that I can’t quite discern. As I trudge up the porch steps with now-calm Ghost at my side, I prepare myself to be scolded like I’ve just sliced up her bed sheets with scissors.

The first thing she says to me when I halt right before her is, “What the heck was that?”

“I’m sorry.”

But then the corner of her mouth lifts in a faint smile. “You _exploded_.” 

If my face wasn’t already beat red, my cheeks would have turned pink right then. “You exploded first,” I gently point out. 

She moves so slowly and with such uncertainty, but I still don’t have time to register what’s happening until Dany presses her lips to mine in a soft, lingering kiss, like the kind your first crush might give you at the end of a date if you played your cards right. It isn’t until she breaks the kiss and steps away from me that we both seem to realize that one of the reasons it’s so quiet now is because Rhae is no longer screaming violently from her bedroom closet. We both turn to look inside the house and spot Rhae standing in the foyer with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth and her hands behind her back, staring up at us with a calmness that I find suspicious coming from such a rambunctious girl. 

Both Dany’s and my eyes stay on Rhae, as if our lives depend on what she does next. After an agonizing minute, she speaks a simple statement. “I’m hungry.” 

Clearing her throat, Dany asks, “You want Chef Boyardee?” 

Rhae nods and walks with such serenity through the archway leading to the kitchen, like a nun walking into a chapel. 

Dany turns her head to me, but her eyes never really find mine. “Dinner time,” she says before disappearing into the kitchen as well. 

Something has changed, I can feel it. I just don’t quite know what that change is, or what it could mean, or even if it’s good or bad. All I know for certain is that I haven’t been sent away yet, and I still maintain no desire to send myself away, so I follow in the path of the ladies of the house and shut the door behind me. 

Dany doesn’t mention the kiss the rest of the evening and I do not dare bring it up. After Rhae has gone to bed, Dany tells me that her late husband had been a hot head, a quality she thinks he passed down to Rhae, and that no matter how much trouble he got into, Dany always had a soft spot for his overly macho personality, right up until it got him killed within the walls of San Quentin. 

“Don’t do that again, okay?” she tells me softly as I hold a bag of frozen sweet corn against my aching cheekbone. “As much as I appreciate it, and as much as I wanted to do the same thing, don’t do it again.”

I promise her I won’t, but the truth is, I’m not even sure why I did it to begin with. Fighting had always been more of a game or a sport to me growing up. I can’t even pinpoint a time when I got into a real fight with anyone, and yet, that was the first instinct I had when I heard those threatening words come out of the neighbor’s mouth. Maybe it was the masculine energy in me telling me I had to defend Dany’s honor, but maybe it was something else. Maybe that’s just what I do now. Maybe somewhere along the way I decided it’s okay to throw down with anyone who pisses me off.


	3. Chapter 3

“Look! Look, look, look, look, LOOK!”

“We’re looking!” calls Dany back to her daughter from where she sits beside me on the green corduroy sofa. 

I take a sip of my beer as I watch Rhae dance excitedly on the shag carpet, thrusting her index finger toward the TV where her favorite scene of her favorite movie plays. 

“Sit down so we can see it,” Dany tells her. 

The girl plops down onto the carpet next to where Ghost has been napping since the movie began. 

For the next couple of minutes, I focus on Sandra Bullock kicking the ass of her fellow FBI agent on a stage in front of thousands while wearing an incredibly stupid outfit, all the while Rhae is wiggling and giggling with glee. 

“That’s what I wanna do!” she announces after the scene concludes, spinning around and giving her mother a wild-eyed look. “Mom! That’s what I wanna do for my talent!”

With a cringe, Dany shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rhea. Besides, the talent show is to showcase a talent you already have. You don’t know self-defense.” 

“I wanna be Miss Congeniality!” 

“I thought you wanted to sing. You have such a beautiful voice.”

“No, I wanna be Miss Congeniality!”

“Can you use your indoor voice with me, Rhae?”

In response, Rhae marches up to Dany and as soon as she is standing directly in front of her mother, she leans in close and whispers in a particularly menacing way, “I. Want. To. Be. Miss. Congeniality.”

“Well it’s _your_ talent show. You can do whatever talent you want, but—"

“Yes!” Rhae squeals, throwing her fists into the air and doing a lap around the living room like Rocky. And then she calls out my name, which is startling only in so far that I think it’s the first time she’s said my name to me. “Jon! Want to be partners with me?”

“Um. . .” I blink slowly at her enthused face. “What?”

“Want to be partners with me for my talent show?!” she asks while giving the air in front of her a few good punches. 

“Honey, Jon can’t be in your talent show,” says Dany. 

“But I need a partner so that I can be Miss Congeniality and kick his butt!”

“Indoor voice. And I don’t think Jon wants to have his butt kicked.”

Rhae’s eyes turn back to me as she hugs her hands to her chest and nervously says my name again. “Jon?”

“Well. . .” I blink a few more times. “Why don’t you ask one of your friends to do it with you? Don’t you think that would be way more fun?”

Hands dropping to her sides, Rhae’s expression turns morose. “Fine,” she mumbles. “I don’t want to do the stupid talent show anyway.”

“Rhae,” Dany tries. 

“I DON’T WANNA DO IT ANYMORE!” she screeches before breaking into a sprint through the house, feet stomping hard against the floor the whole way, before slamming her bedroom door in the manner I’ve grown accustomed to since the first evening I spent here. 

Turning quickly to Dany, who is already standing from the sofa, I tell her for the hundredth time since meeting her, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she assures me before hurrying after her daughter. 

It’s been more than two weeks since I first inserted myself into Dany’s home and life, and after half a dozen visits, I finally know what to do in these situations: nothing. So, I pause the movie and remain on the sofa until Dany returns, which can sometimes take over an hour, but this time, it’s a reasonable ten minutes before she’s climbing back onto the sofa and downing the contents of her wine glass in big gulps. 

“Is she okay?” I ask reluctantly. 

“She’ll be alright,” Dany answers but without much confidence. 

“I can help her with the talent show.”

She shakes her head. “It isn’t about the talent show. She just. . . She doesn’t really have any friends.”

“That can’t be true. She must have a friend. Everyone has at least one friend.”

As Dany’s head shook, I came to the realization that I didn’t really have any friends either. I’d left all of my high school friends behind to move to Chicago and they feel so distant from me still that I never even considered looking any of them up. Things were so hectic in my first couple months of college that I hadn’t gotten around to socializing with anyone besides my roommate, but I can’t remember if we ever got past the acquaintance stage to actual friendship. I suppose Robb was my friend, but I certainly don’t consider him as such now. Ygritte was my girlfriend, but I feel as connected to her as I do with Davos, the doorman. Maybe Davos is my friend. No. . . he’s just the doorman. 

After some resistance from Dany, she walks me to Rhae’s door and watches as I let myself in. 

“Hey, Rhae?” I say quietly. 

The room is silent. The young girl has opted for sulking rather than screaming this time. She lies curled into a ball under a purple polka-dot comforter. Only a few sprouts of brown hair from the very top of her head are visible. 

“Want to come out and finish the movie with me?” I ask, but I receive no response beside the barely-there rustling of Rhae’s quivering form under her covers. “We could play a game while we watch.”

Still nothing. I crouch down beside her twin sized bed and try once more. “It’s still early. We could play Uno. That one’s my favorite.” 

Finally, I receive a muffled reply. “No.”

“Please?”

Mockingly, she answers, “Why don’t you play it with one of your _friends?_ ”

“Well, I don’t really have any,” I say. “That’s why I’ve been coming around here. I’m trying to make friends. I thought maybe you’d want to be my friend.”

The bundle on the bed rustles some more until Rhae’s face is poking out from under the comforter. With a very serious, solemn face, she asks, “Will you do my talent show with me?”

“I would, but I think your mom _really_ wants to do it with you. And I don’t want to make her jealous, because I’m kind of trying to make friends with her, too.” 

A breathy grumble comes from Rhae’s throat before she slowly unfurls herself from her covers, slides off the bed and retrieves a large Uno deck from atop her cluttered dresser. 

“Let’s go, then,” she says on her way out the bedroom door with a blank expression. 

I look to Dany as I leave the room, hoping for some sort of thumbs up that I did good, but all I get from her is a look not dissimilar from Rhae’s. Targaryen girls are hard to read, but it only takes a well-placed Draw Four card at my expense to coax bright smiles onto both their faces. 

Eventually the movie ends, the TV channel is turned to nightly news, and Rhae is falling asleep on the carpet. It’s my favorite part of the evening because Dany is just tired enough that when I drape my arm across the back of the sofa and dance my fingers across her shoulder, she doesn’t bat my hand away. 

* * * * *

It’s late when I get home. After a long walk down the Los Angeles streets, Ghost and I get out of the elevator on the twelfth floor and I’m immediately struck with uncomfortable surprise seeing Ygritte sitting on the floor beside my front door. When her eyes find me, she breaks out of a bored daze and quickly stands on shiny high heels to greet me.

“You haven’t been answering your phone. I’ve been worried,” she says in an awkward fashion, like she thinks I’ll be mad at her for dropping by. Eyes flickering down to Ghost with confusion, she asks, “Who’s dog is that?”

“Oh, this is my dog, Ghost,” I say. “I think that phone died. I got a new one.” 

“Oh.”

I unlock the door and allow her inside.

“What the hell happened in here?” she asks, eyes widening at the sight of the place which confuses me only because I think it looks infinitely better in here than when I first saw it. “Looks like a tornado came through.”

“It looks like someone actually lives here.”

“Well. . . it’s a style.” Turning back to me, Ygritte raises her hand to my cheek but pulls it away before her skin can touch mine. “What happened? You get into a fight?”

I almost forgot about the bruise that still has not completely faded from my cheekbone after Dany’s neighbor punched me. “Is that something I do a lot?”

She replies with an expression that suggests she doesn’t know how to reply followed by a somber question. “I’m a stranger to you, aren’t I? I mean. . . I knew that you couldn’t remember me. I understood that, but I guess I never really grasped the fact that I’m just a _stranger_ to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ever since you woke up, I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do when the man who I love more than anything in the world doesn’t remember who I am, but I’m failing. What should I do? What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t. . .” I swallow hard, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I don’t know. Are you sure I loved you back?”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because her hand immediately covers her eyes and I can tell she’s crying. I don’t know what I hate more, that I’ve made someone cry or that I don’t care. But whether I feel anything for this woman or not, she doesn’t deserve all that I have unwittingly inflicted on her. 

“You’re in love with someone else,” I say. “I don’t know who that person is. As far as I can tell so far, he’s not very much like me. I’m not sure you’d even still love me if we were to hang out.” As soon as I say the phrase ‘hang out’ I feel like a fool, because adults don’t ‘hang out,’ they date and form relationships and fall in love. “I’m sorry that I come off as rude. It’s hard for me when you talk about how much you care about this person I don’t know or trust. I don’t want to be him. I want to be me.” 

Wiping at her cheeks, she sniffles and takes a deep breath before saying, “How do you know you’re so different from who you were before the crash? Because I look at you, and I see the same guy. You’re dressed different, you’re clearly less organized, and you almost never wore your hair down, but you have the same eyes. The same quiet uncertainty. When I stand next to you, I feel that you’re still you.”

Averting my eyes down at the floor, I suddenly feel like I might join her in tears, mostly because the thought of the me right now being in any way similar to the me I’ve gotten glimpses of since leaving the hospital sounds like more of a threat than a reassurance. 

Meekly, Ygritte asks, “Can we hang out some time, then? We could go to that Indian food place you love.”

“I don’t like Indian food,” I mutter sadly. 

“Really? Well that’s good, because I’ve always hated it.”

I look back to her and though her eyes are still glossy, they shine with a hint of hope now. It is not lost on me how gorgeous this woman is, and I see such a sweetness and warmth about her that I begin to understand how I could have fallen for her. My mind is so preoccupied with thoughts of Dany, though, that exploring any potential with Ygritte feels like a futile effort. Nonetheless, I agree to go out to dinner with her.

* * * * *

Try as I might, there is nothing I can do to get myself excited for a date with Ygritte. I’m wearing one of the dozen suits from my closet, but it feels cumbersome and cold despite all the layers. The fancy shoes bite at my heels with every step I take down to the lobby of my apartment complex. I feel so fake. I even tried tying my hair behind my head the way she said I always would, but my efforts to do it in a way that wouldn’t show the scar running a quarter length around my scalp were fruitless, so I greet her with my hair down. 

“Wow,” she says as her eyes size me up. “You look like you’re on your way to a business meeting.”

I look down at myself with a defeated sigh. “I guess I didn’t know what to wear.”

“No, you look good,” she quickly affirms before taking quick step up to me and lifting her hands to the tie around my neck. “You don’t need this, though.”

Once the tie is pulled free of my neck and discarded onto a lobby chair, she’s giving a nod of approval, though I’m not sure it’s one-hundred percent sincere. 

“Oh. And you look good, too,” I jump to state. It’s true. She looks amazing, but there’s something discomforting about her sleek red dress that dips down low between breasts unconfined by a bra. It’s that same feeling I had when the most beautiful and popular girl in my entire middle school sat next to me at lunch one day, like there is no possible way I can live up to whatever standards she must have, and that everyone who sees me with her will be thinking the exact same thing. 

Ygritte smiles brightly as she takes my arm and leads me out the door being held open for us dutifully by Davos. He sends me a friendly smile as well, like he’s happy to see me with her, but with her arm around mine so intimately, I can’t help but feel guilty that I’m going out with my girlfriend instead of participating in my usual past time of trying to get Dany to like me. I never even told her I was going on this date with Ygritte. I never told her about Ygritte at all. Should I have? Would she care?

The car Ygritte drives is a nice one. Leather seats that make that slippery sound when you sit down and a dashboard that may as well be a computer. It feels like the bat mobile as we drive to a restaurant she’s assured me is one of our favorites. 

“Do you miss your car?” she asks me. 

“I don’t remember what kind of car I had.”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”

As the night goes on – arriving at the restaurant and struggling to decipher the French menu – it seems like every conversation we try to have ends with one of us apologizing. Her for not remembering that I can’t remember anything about her, or us, and me for not remembering things that she thinks I should. 

Wine helps. I don’t even like wine, and this two-hundred-dollar bottle tastes even worse than what Dany drinks, but the slight buzz helps me to loosen up and to disregard the creepy looking dish I ordered. I start to not mind that Ygritte seems to know everything about me when I know not a thing about either of us. 

“So, what was your favorite thing about me?” I ask. 

She answers happily, finally not minding my continued use of the word “was” like I no longer exist. “Probably that you’re so bad at math.”

“That was your _favorite_ thing about me?”

“It’s endearing! You can barely even count when someone is watching you. Like you get stage fright or something trying to calculate a tip. You have to count on your fingers. It’s adorable!”

I chuckle. “That’s probably the first thing you’ve said about me that sounds right. What did you hate about me?”

“I didn’t hate anything.”

“You must have hated something. What was your least favorite thing about me then?”

It takes her a minute to answer, her mouth twisting in a contemplative manner. Not so much like she is trying to come up with a response, more so that she is trying to decide whether or not to voice her response. “I guess I’d say that my least favorite thing about you is that you can be kind of. . .”

As her voice trails off, I expect the worse. Kind of. . . abusive. Kind of. . . violent. Kind of. . . unstable.

“. . . a push over.”

I cock an eyebrow. “A push over?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s just. . . you always seemed to bend over backwards for people, even when you didn’t have to or when you didn’t want to. Especially with your cousin. You would do anything for him even if you knew you shouldn’t, and I never understood why. We would go out of town and not even twelve hours into a vacation that Robb forced you to take, he calls you up and has you on a flight back here to work some more. You’d do it with complete strangers, too. Random people on the street. Panhandlers asking for money. It wouldn’t matter what they claimed to need it for, you’d give it to them. I once watched you shell out forty bucks to a couple of girls in a Staples parking lot who were clearly cracked out of their minds. You’re too passive. Too malleable. I don’t think I’ve ever even told you this because it isn’t like I want some macho meat head, but I don’t know. . . it’s kind of embarrassing sometimes, seeing you getting used over and over.” 

Not even the wine buzz can keep my mood up through that, but in a strange way, it’s comforting to hear yet another thing about the Jon she knows applying to the Jon I know. I remember that popular girl in middle school sitting next to me just long enough to copy my History homework and then never speaking to me again. The mention of Robb and money makes me think of Dany, though, and every time my mind wanders to her, I feel that pang of guilt again. One kiss almost two weeks ago and she has me feeling shame for eating dinner with another woman. Ygritte would probably find that embarrassing if I told her. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that,” Ygritte says regretfully as I stare at my nearly untouched plate of food-like substance. 

“Before the crash, did Robb have me do anything for him that I didn’t want to do?”

“He’d always have you doing things for him, but you didn’t like talking about any of it.”

“Okay,” I mumble.

Leaning forward, Ygritte lowers her voice and says, “You want to know what is really my favorite thing about you? That you’re a good person. It’s in your nature to help people, and maybe it’s to a fault sometimes, but that’s still better than being a not-good person.”

I let myself smile a bit. “Thank you for saying that.”

She smiles back, but brighter, then eyes my nearly untouched plate. “You’re not going to eat that, are you?”

Cheeks pinkening, I shake my head. 

“Want to go someplace else?”

“Is there a Wienerschnitzel around here?”

Ygritte snorts a surprised laugh. “Oh my gosh. I was not expecting that. I suppose this would be an awkward time to tell you that before your crash you were a pescatarian.”

“That definitely doesn’t sound like me,” I laugh. 

I pay the check with a wad of cash, and Ygritte uses the computer on her car’s dashboard to find the nearest Weinerschnitzel, and ten minutes later, she’s trying not to laugh into the drive through window as she orders four chili-cheese burgers. 

“I’m scared!” she exclaims after we park and her thin fingers unwrap the paper around one of the burgers. “This can’t possibly be any good!”

I take the first bite of a burger. It tastes like heaven in my mouth. I let out a near-orgasmic moan as I chew, and I can feel the chili drip onto my fancy white button-up which makes Ygritte laugh even harder. “This is what I want to eat right before I die,” I say before I swallow. 

As she raises the burger cautiously to her mouth, Ygritte’s throat grumbles nervously. One small nibble turns into a small bite, but that’s enough for her eyes to widen like she’s found a golden ticket. 

“Oh my God,” is all she says and I’m nodding my head in vigorous agreement. “I can’t eat this, though. I’m a model! You know the saying, a moment on the lips but a lifetime on the hips!”

I shrug as I take another bite, and with a full mouth, I reply, “Who doesn’t like hips?”

Before I know it, I’ve already devoured two burgers and move swiftly onto a third. 

“You’re going to have to spend like ten hours at the gym to work all that off,” Ygritte chuckles. 

“Yuck. I hate gyms.”

“Well, you’d go to that boxing gym off Sunset about five times a week. You became obsessed with it. I think it was good for you, though. A way to blow off steam. I guess punching things is a good stress reliever. Maybe you were kind of a macho meat head after all. But only there.”

“Boxing?” 

“Mhm. You don’t remember, obviously, but you really liked it. Maybe you’d still like it.”

“Yeah. . . That actually does sound like something I’d be into.” More than that, it sounds like something Rhae would be into, but I don’t say that part. “Where’s the gym?”

“I can text you the address,” she says with a smile. She’s been smiling a lot and I think it’s because things are less awkward between us now. I don’t feel so uncomfortable around her anymore, and she can probably sense that because she looks a lot more comfortable as well. 

When we get back to my condo complex, she walks up to my door with me, which I don’t second guess because I’m too busy being caught up in a conversation about how ludicrous we both find it that I used to send my jeans out to be dry cleaned. I can’t remember ever once going to a dry cleaner let alone using them as a go to spot for all my laundry items. 

It isn’t until we’re walking into my apartment, Ghost startling Ygritte as he bounds over to greet me, that I realize that by allowing her up here it might be sending a particular message. And maybe it is the kind of message I subconsciously wanted to send, but it’s one that immediately discomforts me.

“Tonight was fun, Jon,” she says sweetly. “It’s probably because you’re not working for Robb anymore, but I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun with you. I missed it.”

“Yeah. I had fun, too.”

“So, you want to do it again? I can’t be eating Weinerschnitzel every week, but I will gladly watch you get fat.”

“I would like that,” I say honestly, but the words don’t sound so sweet with what I follow up with. “But. . . I can’t.”

Her auburn eyebrows furrow questioningly. “What do you mean?”

What _do_ I mean? I’ve been seeing someone else. . . but I haven’t really since we’ve never even been on a real date and I’m not even sure if she’s interested in me at all. “There’s. . . someone else. Another girl.”

“You’re with someone else?” behind Ygritte’s confused expression I can see the anger in her eyes and the lines across her forehead twitching. 

“No. I’m not really with her. I’m just. . .”

“Fucking her?” she asks, and though her tone is quite restrained, it reminds me that from her perspective, she probably feels like I’m confessing to cheating on her. But from mine, I’m just letting down a woman I’ve been on one date with, and as much as I hate this situation that car accident put us in, I can’t change any of it. 

“No,” I reply quickly. “No, we haven’t done. . . anything really. It hasn’t been like that.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

“I don’t really understand it either,” I admit. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that. . . I’m not _with_ her, but I want to be with her, so I don’t think it would be right to see you again, like this.”

She turns her head away and raises a hand to cover her eyes. “I’m so stupid,” she mumbles, head shaking. When she looks at me again, it is with a look of betrayal and humiliation. “I never, ever considered that this would happen. In my mind, the worst-case scenario had always been that you’d never love me again, but I never thought that it would be because you’d fall for someone else.”

“You’re great, Ygritte,” I quickly say, feeling overwhelmed with the anxiety of having to break up with someone I barely know. “After tonight, I see that you were probably the best girlfriend I could have had, and if that accident had never happened, or my memories had never gone away, I’m sure that I would have stayed in love with you for a really long time. But there was an accident, and I did lose all my memories of you, and us, and I might never get those memories back.”

“But what if you do get them back? What if it all comes back to you one day and you remember the day we met, and the day you finally got up the courage to ask me out, and the day you told me you loved me, and the day you not-so-subtly asked me about my ring size? If you do this. . . If you go be with someone else and then you remember. . . how are we going to come back from that?” Ygritte turns to the door, wiping moisture from under her eyes as she goes, but before her hand turns the nob, she stops. She takes a deep breath in, looks back at me, and says, “When you remember, I’ll forgive you.”

And somehow that feels worse than anything she could have said in malice. My heart literally aches, and I wonder briefly if the sensation is some sort of muscle memory of the love I once had for her, but in truth, while it aches because of Ygritte, it aches _for_ Dany. 

* * * * *

Just being able to walk into Lucille’s Diner and not have Dany yell at me to leave her alone feels like a personal accomplishment. I sit at the bar near the register so that I can talk to her while she’s cashing someone out, and I order food so that she has no reason to try kicking me out. However, that doesn’t stop her from sending me bashful, faux-annoyed glances every time I try to pull her attention away from counting change.

“You look nice today, by the way,” I tell her and once again, Dany’s eyes leave the register just long enough to squint suspiciously at me, but the ever so subtle smile I can just barely make out gives me all the confidence I need for what I say next. “I think we should go out on a date.”

The register slides shut a little louder than usual as she lets out an incredulous laugh. “You do, huh?” she asks cheekily before fluttering smoothing around the counter and over to one of her tables. With her yellow Dorothy dress and her silky hair hanging in a thick braid down her back, it’s just as hard to believe she’s twenty-eight as it is to believe I’m even older. We may have all the responsibilities that come with adulthood, but I can’t help feeling like a teenager when I’m around her.

When she returns to the register, I lean across the counter and say, “As much as I love Uno and network television, I was thinking we could actually go out someplace. Dinner, movie, basketball game. We could just go to the park and feed the ducks.”

“You’re not supposed to feed the ducks. It’s really bad for their digestion,” she replies passively, without even one of her faux-annoyed glances. 

“The point is that we would be doing something together, just the two of us.”

Now, she looks at me, smiling for real but in a proud sort of way, like she’d just beat me at a game. “See, the _just the two of us_ thing. . . not possible.”

I have to wait another few minutes for Dany to take care of her tables before I get a chance to respond. “Can’t you have your old lady neighbor watch Rhae for an evening?”

Now I get the annoyed look. 

“What about Tuesday? That’s your day off, right?”

She lets out a long, exhausted sigh. “Just because it’s my day off doesn’t mean it’s my _day off_. Tuesdays are when I do all the laundry, and vacuum all the floors, and clean the kitchen, and the bathrooms, and scrub all the glitter glue off Rhae’s bedroom walls. Then, I go pick Rhae up from school and spend four hours trying to get her to do her homework. Then, it’s the usual drill of dinner, tantrums, TV time, tantrums, bath-time, tantrums, and by ten o’clock I’m so tired I can’t even change out of my clothes before falling asleep.”

Unable to argue, I slump down in my seat, defeated. “Okay. I understand.”

It surprises me, though, when Dany doesn’t flutter off again. “There is this thing on Friday. . .”

My spirits immediately perk up. “A thing? I love things.”

She rolls her eyes, but the way her cheeks tint pink and her lips curl in a timid smile perks me up even more. “It’s Friday evening. It’s a fundraiser at Rhae’s school. I really don’t want to go, but I have to, because I’ve missed like every other fundraiser this year. She’ll be there obviously, but she’ll be off playing most of the time. It won’t be just the two of us, but—"

“I’ll be there. I’m excited.”

“It’s not going to be fun,” she warns. 

“It’s going to be so much fun. What do I wear?”

“Clothes, preferably.”

“Done.”

She shakes her head at my glee while she pulls a receipt pad and pen from her apron and scribbles something down onto it. Ripping off the top sheet and handing it to me, she says, “This is the address for her school. It starts at six, but we won’t be there til six-thirty. And don’t walk all the way there, alright? Take an Uber or something, for goodness sake.”

I take the receipt happily. “Great. It’s a date. What’s an Uber?”

With another sigh and a smile, she takes my phone from the counter and begins to program something into it. I take immediate note that she never contested the fact that this would be a date, and I count it as a win. 

After I somewhat understand what the heck an Uber is, she hands me another receipt, this time with an actual dollar amount for my food listed on it. Before she turns to take care of a party that just sat down at a booth, she asks, “You can come over tomorrow, right? Rhae wants you to go on the trampoline with her, and I need someone to distract her while I do my taxes.”

“I have been waiting for an invitation onto that trampoline since the moment I saw it. This is the best day of my life.”

“Well, you can’t remember a third of your life, so that’s not saying a lot,” she retorts cheekily before floating off to do her job. 

“Friday,” I whisper whimsically to myself as I slip the address of Rhae’s school protectively into my wallet. 

* * * * *

Friday is here. Dusk rolls in and the colorful lights from the carnival booths and attractions glow brighter. It’s chilly for a Spring evening but I find the excitement of seeing Dany keeps me warm. She’s later than she said she’d be, but I expected that. I wait by the entrance to the fundraiser held on the elementary school’s blacktop as I see them cross the street, Dany trying to keep hold of Rhae’s hand that tugs relentlessly for freedom. 

As soon as I think Dany sees me, I send them a wave. Rhae seems more excited than Dany does, but Dany’s not the type to display her emotions so proudly. 

“Where’s Ghost?!” Rhae asks excitedly. 

“He had his own party to go to tonight.”

“Oh, fudgesicle! I wanted to show everyone the dog so they’d be jealous!”

“Maybe next time,” Dany tells her as she runs her hands through the girl’s tousled hair. 

“Are you going to go on the ferris wheel with me?!” Rhae asks me. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m scared of heights.” 

“Don’t be a baby, Jon!”

I feign offense with a gasp while Dany struggles not to laugh. She puts her hand on Rhae’s shoulder and walks her to the gate. 

“That was mean,” I whisper to her. 

Smiling up at me, she just says, “Don’t be a baby, Jon.”

For the life of me, I can’t understand why Dany thought this carnival wouldn’t be fun. There are shooting games, a dunk tank, and a magician wandering around pulling rainbow handkerchiefs out of his nose. There’s a cover band playing eighties music on a wooden stage and a full taco bar. Rhae gravitates immediately toward a massive ball pit set up at the basketball courts and from there, moves swiftly to the inflatable jungle gym at the kickball court. 

“How are you not enjoying this right now?” I ask Dany, who absentmindedly pops kernel after kernel of kettle corn into her mouth with her eyes glued on Rhae. 

“I’m enjoying the fact that Rhae’s enjoying herself,” she replies passively. 

“Come on. There’s music, magicians, and snacks. What’s not to like?”

She sighs and give me a look. “I don’t like that I have to spend a bunch of money for tickets to this thing, and more money on food I don’t like, just to support a school that wants to kick my daughter out. And I hate everyone here.”

“Everyone?” I point toward a random old man spooning nacho cheese onto a plate of tortilla chips. “Even that guy?”

“He was Rhae’s third grade teacher. Felt me up during Back to School Night. Sleezebag.”

“Her?” I ask, pointing toward a middle-aged woman with golden hair, on her knees in the grass and wiping snot from a little boy’s face.

“Cersei. A total nutball. After Rhae’s hair incident, that lady fought with me in the school parking lot, saying I was exposing her son to my _alternative values_ like I’m running some sort of cult.”

The thought of Dany fighting with an older parent about Rhae’s aesthetic makes me chuckle. “I kind of like being exposed to your alternative values.”

“Oh yeah? You want to join my cult?”

“Totally. But I’m not cutting my hair, because I look good.”

“It looks nice.”

I bring my hand to my chest and drop my jaw. “A complement? For me?”

She does that thing where she rolls her eyes but smiles at the same time. I take a chance, lifting my hand and run my fingers through the loose hairs that frame her face. 

“You should wear your hair down,” I say, recalling the image of her in my mind – black dress, lace gloves, hair falling down around her shoulders in fluffy waves. 

She shakes her head. “It’s too long.” 

Because she doesn’t stop me, I let my fingers trail down behind her ear and around to the back of her neck, underneath the thick braid that binds her hair together.

“You’re tickling me,” she says, so I move my hand away and dip it instead into her own hand, intertwining my fingers with hers and holding tight. 

Her eyes flutter up to me and softly, she asks, “How am I supposed to eat my kettle corn now?”

I shrug. “You don’t even like it.”

She doesn’t respond, turning instead back to where Rhae plays on an inflatable obstacle course, but I swear I can feel Dany squeeze my hand back. 

“You know,” I say, “my very first date was at a carnival just like this one. I was six. . . she was twelve.”

Dany shakes her head, not looking at me, but I can still see the smile. 

“I think that maybe I was more into her than she was into me, because the entire date consisted of me literally chasing her everywhere until her parents took her home. I think you like me, though.”

“Oh yeah?” she speaks quietly. 

“Yeah. And I think you want to kiss me again.”

“You do, huh?”

“I do.”

Her head turns and her eyes find mine once more. She looks like she wants to disagree, but her tongue darts out slightly to lick her lips. 

“Daenerys!” a proper, female voice calls out which draws Dany’s attention quickly away from me, and her hand away from mine. Sauntering over to us is that same golden-haired woman who had been cleaning her son’s face, wearing a cashmere dress in bold red. “How lovely of you to show up to one of our events! We’ve missed you. Usually the single parents put in an extra effort to be present at school functions, to compensate for the hole in the family unit, I’m sure. But at least you’ve found time to be here tonight.”

Dany puts on a smile that I know is fake because it’s the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on her. “Cersei, how are you? You look great. New anti-aging cream?”

The older woman lets out a boisterous laugh. “You are so feisty, Daenerys! No wonder your daughter is such a wild card.” She turns to me. “And who is this handsome man you’ve got with you? A fellow diner employee?”

“Actually, he’s a lawyer,” Dany replies pointedly, losing some of the faux-friendliness. 

I awkwardly introduce myself and give the woman’s cold, slender hand a shake. With my best impression of a professional adult, I say, “Jon Snow. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Jon Snow?” she asks with a look of intrigue. “Why does that name sound so familiar? Have we met before?”

“I wouldn’t remember. Trust me.”

“Do you do patent law? My husband is something of an inventor.”

“Um. . .” Only vaguely knowing what patent law is, I shake my head. 

“Well, what do you practice? Civil law? Criminal law? Tax law? Real Estate Law? Entertainment law? Immigration law? Constitutional law? Environmental law? Family law? Prosecutorial law?”

“I’m a professor,” I proclaim loudly, just to get her to stop naming different types of law. 

“Ohhhhhh,” she replies, drawing out the syllable as her head bobs. “Well, I’m sure all the young female law students just love taking your classes. But I suppose that’s just a perk of the position, huh?”

The way Cersei’s eyebrows wiggle and lips smirk gives me the creeps, and I think I might agree with Dany’s assessment that she’s a ‘total nutball.’

“Well it was great catching up with you!” Dany exclaims while putting her arm around mine and pulling me away from the woman. 

“It was nice to meet you, Jon Snow!” Cersei calls out as I’m tugged off in a random direction. 

Once Dany looks over her shoulder and sees that Cersei has moved on to conduct uncomfortable small talk with someone else, she stops walking. 

“You were using me to impress her,” I point out with a grin. 

“Was not.”

“ _Actually, he’s a lawyer_.”

She laughs. “Well that sounds better than unemployed and brain damaged. And what about you?! _I’m a professor_.”

“What? I always wanted to be a professor. They always seemed so cool in their sweater vests. And don’t think that that weird lady is going to let me forget that you were about to kiss me.”

“I was not!” 

“You so were, _Daenerys_.”

She lets out a pronounced groan. “She only calls me that because she knows I hate it.”

“I think it’s pretty.”

“Thank you.” She smiles a new kind of smile. Content, maybe. “I think I want tacos now, but I don’t want to stray too far from Rhae.”

“I can get m’lady some tacos,” I offer with a bow. 

Five minutes later, I’m back with a plate of carne asada tacos for both of us and Dany’s unwanted kettle corn finds a new home in the trash can. 

“I found out that I was a pescatarian before the car accident,” I say between bites. 

“Really? Why?” asks Dany with a full mouth.

“I have no idea.” I swallow. “And apparently I used to box.”

“Like in a ring, fighting people?”

“Not sure. I guess I went to a boxing gym, though.”

Dany hums under her breath while chewing another bite. After swallowing, she asks, “How did you find all this out? Are you remembering things?”

“No. Ygritte told me.”

“Who’s Ygritte?”

It’s my turn to hum under my breath, but more so out of regret than intrigue, because I immediately realize I’ve made a mistake. “Um. . .” I begin cautiously. “I guess she’s my ex-girlfriend. Sort of.”

Dany cocks an eyebrow and even though she wears an amused smile, I don’t let that fool me into thinking she won’t be mad at me for going out with another woman. 

“Sort of?” she asks. 

“Well, she was my girlfriend before the crash, but I don’t really feel anything for her, so I broke up with her, officially. She isn’t my girlfriend anymore, I swear. I wouldn’t have asked you out if I had a girlfriend.”

Her expression turns concerned. “You had a girlfriend at the time of the crash?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have any feelings for her. None that compare to how I feel about you.”

Disregarding my confession, Dany asks, “How long were you with her?”

“I don’t know. A couple of years?”

“Jon. . .” Though it’s much more subtle than how Ygritte appeared the other night, I hate the hurt in her eyes more than anything.

Before I can try anything, though, someone else calls out my name. I turn and see Rhae skipping up to me. “Let’s go on the ferris wheel, Jon!”

I look to Dany, but her face has already changed. Wearing a smile down at her daughter, she says, “Alright. One ride on the ferris wheel, but then we have to go home. Okay, Rhae?”

“Okay, okay!” Laments Rhae as she tugs on my arm. The girl doesn’t give me much choice but to leave Dany. But, the entire time I’m on the ferris wheel, I’m wondering what Dany must be thinking standing down on the ground, watching us. 

As we walk back to Dany’s car, Rhae skips along the sidewalk ahead while I try and fail at holding Dany’s hand once more. As soon as my fingertips brush her palm, her arms recoil, folding across her chest. 

“What’s wrong?” I whisper so Rhae won’t hear. 

“Nothing.”

I let out a self-deprecated groan. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“You didn’t fuck up.” 

Dany stops walking once we reach a white compact sedan and calls out for Rhae to get into the car. As the young girl hops into the backseat, she asks, “Jon, are you coming to my house?” but Dany answers quickly, “It’s late, Rhae. Jon has to go to his own house.”

“But—" 

The car door is pushed shut before Rhae can protest. 

I look at Dany regretfully. “Look, I obviously fucked up somehow. Just tell me what I have to do to fix it.”

She stares at me for a long while with an unreadable expression before telling me to wait where I stand, then rounding the car. She puts her keys into the ignition and turns up the radio for Rhae before shutting the driver door and coming back to the curb with me. 

“You didn’t fuck up,” she assures me with a very un-assuring way. “I just don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“Why? Because of Ygritte? I barely know her.”

“That’s just it, Jon. You only think you barely know her, but in reality, you were committed to her. You were with her for two years. People aren’t together for two years unless it’s something real. This. . .” She gestures her hands from herself to me. “This isn’t real.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Look, it’s been nice having you around. I like. . . I like talking to you. But, Rhae and me. . . we’re just place holders until you get your memories back, and I can’t do that to her, or myself.”

Before she can turn away, I put my hand around her shoulder. “Why does everyone think I’m going to magically get my memories back? The chances that I’ll just wake up one morning and remember my whole life is next to nothing. This is my life now, and I don’t appreciate you saying that it isn’t real, because it is.”

Her head shakes. Her eyes won’t meet mine. “If we were to start something, I would always worry about you remembering being in love with someone else and leaving me. It doesn’t matter how minuscule the chances are of that actually happening. And why would you even want to be with someone who hopes you never regain your memories?”

“I don’t want to regain my memories either,” I state. “When I was a kid and I would forget something I wanted to say, my mom would tell me _it must not have been very important._ Well, the last ten years must not have been very important.”

“Jon, that’s not how it works.”

“Maybe not, or maybe that’s exactly how it works.”

Her head shakes again as she turns away, mumbling, “I have to think.”

“I did remember something, Dany,” I tell her, keeping my hand on her shoulder and hoping she doesn’t push away. “I remembered you. Because you’re important.”

“That’s not why you remember me,” she insists with misty eyes. “I’m not important. You remembered me because you felt bad for me. Because I did something stupid, it bit me in the ass, and you had to clean up the mess. It isn’t just about your girlfriend, Jon. If you get your memories back, you’re going to remember how profoundly pathetic I am – how I’m the last girl you’d ever want to be with.”

“That isn’t true. I may not remember whatever it is you’re talking about, but I remembered you because I cared about you. Maybe you didn’t know it. Maybe no one knew it. Maybe I didn’t even know it. But I know it now, and now is all that matters to me.”

“That’s because now is all you have.” Her hand comes up to swipe a tear away the second it streams down her cheek. “The decisions we make are based off of our past experiences, and you can’t remember your past experiences. If you ever do—"

“I _won’t_ ”

“ _If_ you do. . . you’re going to regret the decisions you’re making now. You’re going to regret choosing me.”

I take a step closer to her, nearly closing the gap between us altogether, and brush away another tear before she can do it herself. “I won’t. Even if I get my memories back, it won’t change anything. You can trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she whispers softly. “I trust you, right now, but I don’t know if I can trust the man you’ll be if you remember what I did, or if you remember loving someone else.”

I let out a long breath before taking a step back, pulling my touch from her to scratch anxiously at the scar across my scalp. “What do you want, Dany?” I ask her. “If you don’t want this, if you’re not interested in me – just tell me, and I’ll leave you alone. But if you do want this, you’re going to have to take a chance with me. Every relationship has the potential to change, for better or for worse. I’m ready to take the chance that no matter what happens, no matter what changes we’ll face, I’ll still want you. You need to decide if you’re going to take the same chance, because I can’t chase you forever, as much as I’d want to.”

Eyes still not meeting mine, she gives a subtle nod and turns away. This time, I don’t try to stop her as she rounds the car again and gets into the driver’s seat. Before the car can speed away, Rhae gives her window a knock and waves goodbye to me. When they’re gone, taillights disappearing into the nighttime fog, I realize how dark it’s become, and how cold.


	4. Chapter 4

A knocking at my front door startles me awake, and I push Ghost’s big head off of my stomach so that I can roll off of my mattress. I had dragged into the living room last night so that I could fall asleep while watching TV. The midday sun glows in through the wall to ceiling windows, shaming me for waking up so late, and in yesterday’s clothes no less. The first thought that comes to mind is Dany as I walk to the door, but she doesn’t have my address. Just in case, though, I run my fingers through my hair as best I can before pulling the door open. 

“Jesus, you look like shit,” Robb greets after giving me a once over. By contrast, he stands straight in a dark blue suit and thin black tie, cleanly shaven and curls perfectly kempt. 

I step aside when he walks forward, not exactly inviting him in but not denying him entry either.

After a few comments about the state of the apartment, Robb asks me why I haven’t been going to my doctor’s appointments. 

“I wasn’t aware that I had any more doctor’s appointments.”

“They’ve been leaving messages on your phone.”

“I got a new phone.”

He lets out a sigh, and I can’t help but feel agitated by the disappointment on his face. “Well your doctor contacted me, and I scheduled you another appointment for Monday. I can take you there.”

“That’s not necessary.”

Before Robb can rebut, a low growl turns both of our attentions to the space between the couch and the TV where Ghost stands on the mattress, glowering his red eyes in our direction and baring his teeth. 

Taking a step backwards, Robb leans toward me and asks in a hushed, fearful voice, “What the fuck is that?”

“My dog,” I answer simply. 

I hear him gulp. “That isn’t a dog.”

Ghost leaps up onto the couch, perching his front paws on the stiff back cushions and snarling fiercely as his eyes pierce into Robb. When he lets out a sharp bark, Robb jumps backwards, nearly stumbling to the floor. I don’t know what to make of Ghost’s disdain, and I’m too half-asleep to think to do anything about it, so I simply follow Robb as he scurries fearfully out of the apartment. 

Once we’re safely in the hallway with the apartment door shut, Robb asks, “Why the hell is that thing in your apartment?” 

“I told you. He’s my dog.”

“That’s not a dog. That’s a predator,” he argues, as if I’ve done him great harm by adopting Ghost. “Look, we need to have a conversation, Jon. About what you’ve been doing.”

“What do you mean?”

He lets out a breath, trying to compose himself, but his face is still red from the burst of adrenaline and suddenly, he doesn’t seem so strong in that suit. “I owe you an apology.”

I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You told me you thought you remembered something, and I let you believe that it wasn’t a memory, but I was lying. The girl with the long silver hair. . . I knew who you were talking about. And I know that you’ve been spending time with her.”

“Are you following me?”

“No,” he answers quickly. “But, I’ll admit, I’ve had Theon check on you a few times, just to make sure you’re doing alright. I didn’t want to keep bothering you, okay? You said you needed space, and I’ve been trying to give you that. . . Has she told you what happened?”

I cross my arms over my chest, suddenly wide awake. I can still hear Ghost growling from inside the door which adds a perfect underlay to how I stare at my cousin with contempt for even speaking about Dany with such condescension. “I want you to tell me what happened,” I say, just to gain some dominance in the conversation – just to not be a push-over, as Ygritte would put it. Truthfully, if something happened, I only want to hear about it from Dany. 

“I’ll take that as a no. She was at an event I put on for our board members, investors, executives, etcetera. It was about six or so months ago. Talisa was visiting her brother back East with little Eddie and I was drunk off expensive liquor, not thinking straight at all. That girl you say you remember. . . the one you’ve been hanging out with. . . Dina, Dana, or whatever. . . I slept with her that night. I mean,” He lowers his voice, despite it just being us in the corridor, “she seduced me, and I fell for it. I’d never done anything like that before, Jon. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I kept it from you because I didn’t want you to know the worst thing I’ve ever done before you got to know all the reasons why we grew so close. That was another mistake, obviously, because it made you distrust me.”

My eyes drift down to the carpet and my lips press together tightly, suddenly light-headed and stomach-sick. “Why would I remember her for that?” I ask, trying to remain as calm as possible while my body temperature rises to a boil, and my brain throbs against my skull.

“Well, she turned out to be a wack job,” Robb answers defensively. “She came after me, trying to extort me for fucking fifty-thousand-dollars, saying that she was going to tell my wife what happened if I didn’t pay her off. I came to you for advice of course, which was probably selfish on my part because it put a lot of stress on you to help me out.”

I remember Dany’s coworker, the waitress who told me about the envelope of cash I slipped Dany. It isn’t lost on me how Robb can’t seem to recall Dany’s name, but remembers the exact amount of money she supposedly wanted from him. “So, you had me do it. You had me pay her off. . .”

“No. Of course not,” he states. “I sent Theon to tell her she wasn’t getting another red cent from me, and if she came near my family or went to any news outlets, I’d sue her for everything she has. After that, she backed off, like I knew she would.”

“You _threatened_ her?” 

“She’s crazy, Jon! Like, literally insane. She seems perfectly normal at first, but it’s a freak show from there. Trust me.” Robb takes a breath. “It was wrong of me to put you in the middle of all of it. I just got so used to delegating personal shit onto you, and it wasn’t fair. The thought of her must have stuck into your mind because of how messed up the whole situation was. And it was going on right before the accident. I honestly wondered for a second, when I got the call that you had been in a crash, if she was the one who hit you out of retaliation. You need to stay away from this girl, Jon. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Before my mind can conjure the right words to express how vehemently I do not believe Robb, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen. 

A call from _Dany._

My head is still in a flurry, but I have enough sense to know that there is only one thing Robb has said to me so far that I can take at face value, and that is that I distrust him. His story doesn’t even make sense. He claims he never had me pay Dany off, and yet I supposedly gave her a substantial amount of money. And this assertion that Dany would have purposefully crashed into me through some vendetta? She would never risk her life like that knowing she is all Rhae has in the world. It’s offensive. I’m offended that Robb would think me gullible enough to believe Dany would ever sleep with someone like him. If Robb is here to make me choose between him and Dany, my gut tells me to pick Dany now more than ever.

“I have to take this,” I tell Robb. 

“I’ll pick you up Monday at noon for your appointment, okay?”

Quickly, as not to miss Dany’s call, I tell Robb sternly to stop having me followed, and rather than bid him any sort of goodbye, I simply go back into my apartment and shut the door between us, locking the deadbolt for good measure. 

Ghost calms immediately upon seeing me enter sans Robb. I answer Dany’s call as Ghost rubs his head against my side comfortingly. 

“Hey there,” I answer with a strange tone, awkward and with some slight Robb-induced exasperation. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Jon,” she speaks, voice sounding meek and nervous. “Do you think I could come over for a few minutes to talk about last night?”

My heart races.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll text you the address and the doorman will show you up.”

“Doorman, huh? How fancy,” she jokes, and I take that as a good sign. 

It takes me all of five minutes to shower and change into mostly-clean clothes. Another five minutes to drag my mattress back into my room and straighten up the apartment just enough for it to look cluttered but not messy and, taking a page from Ghost’s handbook, I wait in the foyer, staring at the front door until I hear another knock upon it. 

I take a few breaths before opening it, as not to seem too eager, and in the hallway stands Dany in navy scrubs, her hair down and scooped over one shoulder. Immediately, I step aside to let her in as we exchange anxious, quiet hellos.

“I can’t stay long. I have a class that starts in an hour,” she says before taking a look around the place. “This is a really nice apartment.”

“Thanks. I kind of hate it.” 

She turns to face me, her eyes – softer than usual – hesitantly finding mine as her hands clutch the strap of the purse hanging from around her shoulder and across her chest. She wears one of those expressions where I think she doesn’t know whether to smile or frown. It feels somewhat overwhelming to be so perfectly alone with her because of how rare an occurrence it is, and as we stand just a few feet apart in my quiet living room, there is no doubt in my mind that everything Robb told me is a lie. I just can’t understand what his motivation would be for making up such an outrageous tale. 

“I guess I’ll just get this over with,” speaks Dany eventually, and I’m disappointed that I can’t just stand there in her quiet presence for a moment longer before she lets me down easy. I brace myself, and she continues. “You were right.”

My eyebrows raise. “I was? About what?”

“If I want to be with you, I’ll have to trust you. And I do trust you. Even if you get your memories back, I trust you.” 

Relief washes over me slowly as I comprehend her words, but before I can express any joy, she continues. 

“But, you’re wrong for trusting me the way you do. There’s too much you don’t know. . . that you don’t remember about me.”

A heaviness grows in my chest as Robb’s words play in my head once more. It feels like I am living a thousand years in this one moment. I realize now that both Dany and Robb had alluded to a “mistake” they both made, and how I was somehow involved in that mistake. Though there are aspects of Robb’s story I can never believe, perhaps some aspects are possible. Maybe Dany had gone to that party, maybe that was where she and Robb met, and maybe they did do something together they both now regret. How does that explain the money, though? I had been given all these puzzle pieces but half of them are blank and the other half may or may not be pieces to a completely different puzzle.

Dany swallows and says, “So, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what happened.”

A jolt of electricity rushes through my body at the idea of hearing a version of this story from the mouth of someone I do trust, but a moment later, my mind processes the nervous foreboding in Dany’s countenance. She looks so ashamed, so sullen, and anxious. She won’t look me in the eye. It makes me feel like a piece of shit for even wanting the truth. She trusts me, and yet I am going to allow her to tell me the one thing that brings her the most shame when I might never be able to tell her all of the shameful things I most likely did while working for Robb?

“No,” I quickly say before Dany can get the first syllable of her confession out. “I don’t want you to tell me.”

She looks taken aback. “Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t be fair,” I eventually answer. “How can I ask you to tell me all the bad things you’ve done when I can’t remember any of the bad things I’ve done? I get this clean slate while you have to fess up to the worst mistakes you’ve made? Maybe this can be a fresh start for the both of us.”

A small smile of relief forms on her face, like I have done her a great kindness. After all of the many kindnesses she has done for me, gifting Dany her secret is the least I can do. There is a selfishness to my decision, though. As long as Robb’s story remains uncorroborated, I can convince myself that none of it is true. I may never know what the envelope full of money was all about, but I would take not knowing over the image of Robb touching Dany, and Theon threatening Dany, any day. “Are you sure?” she asks, eyes shimmering with teary optimism. “Because, I’d really like that.”

“I’m sure,” I softly insist, feeling surprisingly content with this decision. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, right? “It’s like I said last night. I care what happens right now, not what happened before. And all I want right now is you and me.”

“But it’s not just you and me, you know. There’s Rhae, too. She’s got to be my number one.”

“You can both be my number one.”

She takes a step closer to me, her hands finally releasing the death grip she had on her purse strap. “You’ll have to talk to her about it. Make sure she’s okay with it. It isn’t just my call.”

“I can do that. She likes me.”

“Well, you have a dog.”

“I’ll bring the dog.”

Her smile brightens as she lets out a small, breathy laugh. “Okay.”

I nearly jump. “Okay?”

She nods. “Okay.”

I close the gap between us and curl my arms around her waist, but before I finally feel her mouth against mine, I stop myself and succumb to my jealous curiosity. “I do have one question, though.”

Her hands raise to my neck, shocking my skin with gentle warmth. Her voice enters my ears like smooth molasses, asking, “What is it?” It’s hypnotizing. All of her. 

“I can’t remember,” I whisper the white lie just before pressing a kiss to her soft, smiling lips. Like many things, I can’t remember ever feeling so close to another person, but somehow, this newness hits deeper, like maybe this isn’t just a first for the piece of me left over from the crash, but to all the pieces of me that are lost as well. Dany is the family I’ve lost, the friends I can’t remember, the feelings I never shared, and the truths I never told. That crash took all the things I didn’t need from me and gave me the one thing I didn’t even know I’d been looking for.

I run my hand through her hair as her tongue slides between my lips. I never want her to leave, but after minutes of investigating every inch of her mouth and my hands exploring every inch of her back, Dany pulls away from my embrace, giggling through swollen lips and insisting she has to get to class. I press one last kiss to the center of her forehead before she goes – before I can confess to her that I already love her. 

* * * * *

“Listen, Jon, that doctor. . . he’s just guessing statistics based off people who aren’t anything like you,” Robb states in his reassuring tone as we sit side by side in the backseat of his chauffeured Lincoln, on the way to my apartment after this useless doctor’s appointment Robb dragged me too. It seems the only point to the whole thing was to tell me once again that the chances of getting my memories back were next to none. “You could still regain your memories. And if you don’t. . . well, that’ll be okay. You’re young. Not even thirty. Lots of people start over at your age. And you can always move back in with me. Talisa won’t mind.”

He goes on rambling for a few more minutes, but I’m only half listening. My eyes are glued out the window, watching the city as the driver brings us closer and closer to my building. Eventually, my eyes catch something that makes me holler out to the driver to pull over. 

“What’s going on?” Robb asks like I just shouted fire in a crowded theater. 

“I want to get out here,” I answer casually, popping open the door as soon as the vehicle is stopped along the curb. 

“Why here? We’re still a couple blocks from your place.”

“That’s okay. I can walk.”

“Okay. . .” Robb gives a skeptical look, then quickly asks before I can shut the door, “What about dinner? Come over for dinner.”

“I’ve got—"

“Don’t say you have plans.”

I sigh, dropping my shoulders in defeat. “Alright. I’ll try to come over,” I concede before shutting the door and averting my mind back to that neon sign. 

It doesn’t even occur to me that it might be weird to simply walk into a boxing gym without any athletic gear or even a basic idea of what I’m doing there until I’m already through the double doors, the little bell on the handle jingling to alert the staff to my presence. It isn’t a large facility but there is room enough to host a class of six teens at the first ring, a middle-aged man working with a trainer on a second ring, and a few buff bros working out with the punching bags near the back. 

“Jon!” exclaims an accented voice that turns my eyes to the man behind the front desk. He is handsome and middle-aged, with black hair atop his head and decorating his jaw. His yellow muscle shirt and athletic shorts show off a toned physique, and his smile is bright with familiarity. “I haven’t seen you in forever, my man. I heard about what happened in the news. My youngest daughter reads the Times. We sent a basket to your place. Did you get it?”

Nodding like I know exactly what he’s talking about, I tell him I did get his basket, despite not knowing which basket his was, or if I even did get it. “Thank you for that. It was very thoughtful.” 

“How are you?” he asks, coming around the counter and dropping his hand onto my shoulder with more weight than I expect. “We were all so worried when we heard what happened. My daughters even brought you flowers when you were in the hospital a few times. After we heard you’d gotten out of there, I wanted to reach out, but didn’t want to disturb your recovery, you know?”

“Oh no. That’s alright. Don’t even worry about it. Just your thoughts are enough. I’m sorry, though. The head injury has caused my memory to be a bit spotty and I’m having trouble finding your name.”

“Of course, of course,” speaks the man sympathetically. “Oberyn. Oberyn Martell, but my friends call me Viper and you, sir, are a friend.”

Finally. A friend. 

I smile. “Alright. Viper. I’ll remember that from now on.”

Regaining his excitable demeanor, even bouncing on the balls of his feet, Viper asks, “You ready to hop into the ring? Maybe show some of these punks over here how real men fight?”

Laughing to mask how terrifying that sounds, I answer, “Unfortunately, I think my doctor would have me involuntarily committed if he heard I was doing contact sports. I was actually wanting to ask you a question.”

“Anything, my man.”

“Do you have classes for kids?”

“Kids? Of course! Look at these scrawny boys over here. Barely old enough to drive let alone box!”

“Actually, I’m thinking more in terms of classes for children. My girlfriend has a daughter—"

“The model is a mama?” asks Viper, wide eyed. 

“No, no. My new girlfriend. I’m seeing someone else now, and she has a daughter. I think that this sort of thing would be right up her alley. She’s. . .”

“Let me guess, getting into fights at school?”

“Definitely.”

“How old is the girl?”

“Nine.”

Raising a hand to his chin, Viper strokes his short beard. “She’s very young. My eldest daughter, Obara, was this young when she began to act out. Always fighting with boys at her school – winning every time of course – but a young girl cannot be fighting at school just as these punks over here” – he motions again toward the teens in the first ring – “cannot be throwing bare fists with each other. Our youngest class begins at age twelve and it is completely full of boys. But, my daughter was the reason I began training others in the art of boxing, which led me to open up this shop almost ten years ago. She will be the perfect teacher to train your new girlfriend’s daughter how to release all of her energy in the ring, and not at school.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course, of course! My daughter is here Tuesdays through Thursdays. She would be delighted to work with another little rabble-rouser!”

“Would tomorrow afternoon work? Tuesdays are my girlfriend’s day off.”

“Of course! Come in tomorrow! We will be delighted to see you again!”

“How much will the lessons be. I want to pay for them.”

“No, no, my man. I want no more money from you. Not when you’ve been paying your membership fee for months without setting foot in the building!” Viper lets out a boisterous chuckle. “Please, bring the girl here tomorrow. Free of charge.”

After an enthused thank you and a hardy shake of the man’s hand, I leave the gym and immediately order an Uber to Dany’s place, really getting a hang of these app things on my phone.

I don’t think the smile I wore while bidding Viper goodbye leaves my face the entire car ride to the house, and it is certainly present when Dany opens up the front door and I am once again in her enchanting presence. 

“I didn’t know you were coming over,” she says with an only slightly surprised look. 

“I wanted to see you.”

Her eyes roll, but my eyes only focus on the pinkening of her cheeks and the subtle tug at the corners of her mouth. “Alright. Come in. Join the circus.”

As soon as I’m two feet in the doorway, I hear the smack of something hitting something else, only to discover the sound had come from Rhae pelting a spiral bound notebook against the dining room wall. 

“Rhae,” Dany starts sternly, but before she can get her warning out, Rhae is snapping her yellow pencil in half and chucking each piece against the same wall. 

“Rhae!” Dany tries once more, but Rhae has already flung herself off of her phonebook-booster seat and is now pounding her fists against the floor like a gorilla at the zoo. Turning to me, Dany simply states, “Math homework.”

“Awe.” I nod, still grinning. “Makes sense then.”

Eyeing me suspiciously, Dany asks, “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Because you look nice today.”

She scoffs, but her cheeks turn bright red and her eyes struggle to meet mine. Taking a glance down at herself, at her camisole and yoga pants, she replies with an anxious chuckle, “No I don’t.”

Taking a step closer to her, I lift my eyebrows and assure her that she most certainly does look nice today before leaning in and pressing my lips to hers, lingering for a few long seconds before one kiss becomes two. It isn’t until I feel her relax against me, that I dare to pull away and shortly thereafter, it occurs to the both of us that we had just kissed in the same room as Rhae. Both heads turning at once, we check to make sure Rhae had not seen and, sure enough, the young girl is sitting on her knees, staring silently at us with that quintessential Targaryen expression that conveys both nothing and everything all at once. 

My grin is finally gone, replaced by a nervous frown as my eyes dart from Rhae, to Dany, and back again, waiting for something to happen so that I would know what’s happening, but as a full minute passes, neither one of them speaks a word. 

“Maybe I can help Rhae with her homework,” I reluctantly suggest, desperate to break the silence. 

“Are you good at math?” Dany asks me quietly. 

“Um. . .” I recall what Ygritte said about me getting stage fright calculating a tip. “How hard can fourth grade math be?”

I could hear Dany’s throat swallow it is so quite. “Rhae, do you want Jon to help you with your homework?”

In response, Rhae simply picks herself off the floor and perches back up on her phonebooks. She slumps against the back of the chair and folds her arms across her chest, frowning at the wall. 

I look to Dany for a translation, but a shrug is all I receive, so I slowly make my way to the table, scooping up her notebook and pencil halves before sitting down across from her. Now obstructing her view of the wall, her brown eyes avert to the tabletop. 

“You okay?” I ask gently, afraid of the answer. “Math is tough, isn’t it?”

“Are you going to be my dad now?”

The question startles me so much that my eyebrows shoot up to the top of my head, and I have to force myself not to break into a panic. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

“Why?”

I look across the room at Dany, but she looks just as paralyzed with fear as I do. 

“Well. . .” I begin hesitantly, “because I’ve never been in a relationship with anyone who had a kid before. Not that I can remember, at least.”

“Oh.” She sounds dissatisfied. 

“I don’t want to be your dad. I mean, I don’t _not_ want to be your dad. I just. . . Well. . .” I clear my throat, deciding to backtrack. “I know that I really, really like your mom. You know that you have the best mom in the world, right?”

Her little shoulders rise and fall in a shrug as her bottom lip pokes out in a pout. “Sometimes.”

“I promise I won’t ever try to take her away from you. And if you ever think that I am taking her away from you, you can tell me, and I’ll stop. Because that’s what friends do. They tell each other the truth. You’ll tell me when I need to leave you and your mom alone, and I’ll tell you when you need to finish your homework so that your mom can relax. Alright?”

“It’s hard,” she mumbled sadly. 

“I know,” I reply. “Everything is hard. Being a kid is hard. Being an adult is hard, which I’ve been figuring out. Life is hard. This, though” – I tap the math notebook with the eraser half of the broken pencil – “this is easy. We can do this. Okay?”

Finally, her eyes lift to meet mine. Though still wearing that unreadable expression, her head nods and she speaks a soft, “Okay.”

When I turn back to Dany to give her a thumbs up, she’s turned to the side and her hands are swiping under her lower eyelids. A moment later, she’s disappearing down the hall, and it all feels so strange to me. I’d seen her sad before, but I’d never had to watch her walk away with tears in her eyes, unable to follow her and see her sadness through. I can’t leave Rhae, though. Not now. And I don’t think Dany would want me too anyway. 

After twenty minutes of me and Rhae busting through the final half of her math homework, with the help of the Google and Calculator apps, Dany returns and begins fixing dinner. 

“Can I watch TV now?!” Rhae loudly asks as she shoves her notebook into a little red backpack. 

Once Dany gives her the affirmative, the girl is bolting from her seat and flipping on the television, turning it onto Cartoon Network and plopping down on the carpet just two feet from the screen. 

Meanwhile, I slide from my own chair and step carefully to where Dany is turning on one of the stovetop burners. I lean my hip against the counter just beside her and ask, “Are you okay?”

She nods with the faintest of smiles. “Are you hungry?”

“Oh. Shit. I told my cousin I would try to have dinner at his house tonight.”

Raising an eyebrow at me, she asks, “You’ve had a cousin you could have been bothering all this time, and yet you choose to hang out here?”

“Well, I’d much rather bother you.”

Her smile brightens as I tuck behind her ear a stray lock of hair that had escaped her braid, but then the smile falls and she curiously asks, “You came all the way over here just to help Rhae with her homework?”

“Oh, I forgot. I came over to tell you something. I’m really excited about it.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I went into that boxing gym by my building that I apparently would train at, and the guy who owns the place – who, by the way, said he’s my friend, so I have a friend now—"

“Wow, look at you,” Dany exclaims with a fun smirk.

“He said that his oldest daughter can train Rhae to box on Tuesday afternoons. For free.” When Dany does not respond as enthusiastically as I spoke the words, my expression falters. “You don’t like it?” I ask. 

“You want me to take my nine-year-old daughter to a boxing gym to learn how to punch people and be punched in return?”

“Well, that’s the basic gist of it, but—"

“That’s ridiculous, Jon. I’m not doing that.”

“She’d be wearing gloves and pads, and I’m pretty sure that they aren’t just going to pit her against someone on the first day. It’ll just be teaching her the sport and – I thought that it would be a good way for her to release her energy. I was just trying to help.”

Her head shakes. “I can’t take her on Tuesdays anyway. I told you, Jon. Just because it’s my day off—"

“I know, I know. It’s still a stressful day, but I was thinking that we could take Rhae to the gym together. Then, afterward, we can all go back to my place, order food so that you don’t have to cook, and I could help you help Rhae with her homework. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s a school night. School nights aren’t supposed to be fun.”

“You’d be the coolest mom ever if you let Rhae learn how to box.”

She chuckles with another shake of her head. “I gave up on being Cool Mom a long time ago.”

“It is never too late to be Cool Mom.”

“Her counselor did say that enrolling her in a sport could help channel her aggression.”

“There you go.”

“But, _boxing?_ Wouldn’t that just show her that I condone violence?”

“It would show her that you only condone violence in a highly controlled setting, only with people who are consenting to the violence, and only on Tuesday afternoons,” I try, hopefully. 

Lips pursed, Dany’s eyes dart around as she contemplates the argument I’d just pulled out of thin air. “Rhae!” she then calls out. 

“It isn’t a commercial!” the girl replies harshly from the living room. 

Dany turns to poke her head into the living room and gives Rhae a pointed warning, “You better answer my question, or else I’ll turn off that TV.”

I hear an exasperated sigh before Rhae asks, “What is it?”

“How would you feel about me taking you someplace tomorrow to learn how to box?”

“Box?”

“Like boxers on TV.”

“Like _Rocky?!_ ” I hear Rhae screech, and I smile, knowing that is a firm yes. 

* * * * *

Dany hovers, watching Rhae warily, arms folded and bottom lip tucked between her teeth. I try taking her shoulders and walking her backwards, farther from where Obara Martell is stooped to Rhae’s eye level, explaining to her the rules of the ring. When Rhae climbs in through the ropes to stand proudly on the platform, Dany looks like she may have a heart attack. 

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “She’s going to be fine. And, look, she’s loving it.” I point to her daughter, who bounds around the circumference of the ring, gloved hands raised – a little Rocky. 

Eyebrows knitted with apprehension, Dany concedes, “She does look cute, that’s for sure.” Reluctantly, she pulls out her phone and snaps a quick pic. 

Distracted by her concern for Rhae, Dany doesn’t shy away when I slip my arm around her waist. I even think she relaxes into it just slightly, and I do not take the achievement lightly. 

“My friend!” exclaims Viper, striding confidently out of the backroom, arms outstretched the whole way until he is enveloping me in a tight embrace. It takes me off guard, even with the warning, and I have to let go of Dany to give him a proper hug in return. 

When Viper pulls back, his attention goes immediately to Dany, eyes widening and hand lifting to press against the center of his chest. “And you must be,” he begins, throwing his arms around Dany now and clutching her against him, “the new paramour.” 

My face reddens, but it is nothing compared to the blush that stains Dany’s cheeks as Viper looks to be all but squeezing the life out of her. When he releases her, Dany lets out a nervous laugh. 

Sizing her up and down, Viper says, “You are a petite thing, aren’t you?” He bends his knees, lowering enough to study Dany’s eyes for a few lingering moments before adding, “Ah, but there is a fierceness inside of you, that is undeniable.” He turns to me and says, “I’ll tell you, I would hate to get into a fight with this one.”

“Me, too,” I reply, smiling as I watch Dany pretend not to find Viper charming. 

“And who is this little peanut?!” asks Viper, twisting around and making his presence known to Rhae and his own adult daughter. 

Rhae laughs, seeming to enjoy the man’s flamboyance. 

“What is your name, little one?” He rests his arms on the ropes, looking up to Rhae. “Wait! Do not answer that. In the ring, it matters not what your name is. It matters who you are. And I can already tell, my dear, you are” – from his pocket, Viper pulls out a sticker sheet with glittery stickers of all sorts of animals. He peels one sticker off and reaches his arm through the ropes to press the sticker to Rhae’s polo shirt – “a dragon.”

Rhae laughs harder, looking down at her sticker proudly. 

“Always be a dragon in the ring, little one. Promise?” 

“Promise,” replies Rhae with a vigorous nod. 

Turning back to Dany, Viper says, “Don’t worry, mama. Your baby dragon will be safe with my daughter.”

As soon as Viper disappears into the back room the way he came, Dany grins wildly at me, no doubt questioning the man’s sanity. It feels good to see her face light up in such a way, though. I can’t stop myself from leaning down and kissing her. She kisses me back, but only for a moment before turning away, retraining her attention on Rhae. 

Leaving the gym, Rhae is a bouncing ball of excited energy. “Jon, did you know my dad was the best fighter in the whole world?!” she joyously asks me. “He was such a good fighter, California had to lock him up!” 

Dany’s reaction to this is an uncomfortable grimace. 

“Right, Mom?!” asks Rhae as she skips down the sidewalk before us.

“I guess,” answers Dany, before calling out to her fast-moving daughter to stay close. 

The three of us travel the two blocks back to my building, and while I know this isn’t a date per se, I still slip my hand into Dany’s and relish in the simple pleasure of holding onto it until we all arrive.

Rhae is in awe as the elevator takes us up to the very top floor, doors sliding open to reveal the lavish corridor that leads to my apartment, a marble sculpture of some abstract figure standing between gold-framed paintings of country landscapes. 

“Jon, are you a famous person?” asks Rhae. 

I start to chuckle but am interrupted when I see a man in a black suit and tie, hair slicked back with gel, standing before my door. I offer a wave as I walk up, getting his attention. 

“Mr. Snow,” he greets me stoically, holding out his hand. This man can’t be any older than I am, but the square of his shoulders and cool confidence feels intimidating. I shake his hand with trepidation. 

“What can I help you with?” I ask. 

“Do you recognize me at all?” asks the man. 

I run my eyes up and down his frame. “You one of the guys from Men in Black?”

His shake shakes curtly and he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a leather flap to flash me his official government credentials. FBI. “Could I have a word with you privately, Mr. Snow?” he asks, sending a glance behind me to where Dany and Rhae stand. 

I turn, noticing the confusion written on Dany’s face matches my own. “Um, yeah. Dany, why don’t you and Rhae head inside and keep Ghost company for a minute.” I unlock my door and push it open for them. Once they are inside, I pull the door shut and turn my skeptical gaze back to the agent before me. “What’s going on?” I ask. 

“We’ve been in contact with your doctor. He says your memories of the last few years haven’t come back yet. Is that true?”

“Uh. . . why would you be speaking to my doctor? Have we met?”

“About a year ago, we approached you about your cousin, Robb Stark. We’ve been investigating his business operations for some time now. Not long before your accident, you came to us with information that would have really helped our case. You said you had proof, but we never received anything. Does any of this ring a bell?”

“No. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“In the months since the accident, have you found any suspicious documents, files, emails. . . anything about the Stark company that—"

“No, I don’t know anything about the company. I don’t have any documents or anything.”

“It would really help if you could take a look around your apartment, your office, and anywhere you may have stored or hidden sensitive information. We really need whatever it is that you found and—"

“I don’t even know what information you’re talking about let alone where I would hide it.”

“Mr. Snow, we’ve been hitting dead end after dead end here. While I’m sympathetic to your situation, it would be the best thing for you if you helped us out. Just take a look around,” he pulls a business card from his suit jacket pocket and hands it to me, “and keep in touch.”

The agent never bids me a goodbye, rather he simply gives a curt nod and starts toward the elevators. My head feels like a cement mixer, my brain the cement, churning and churning, trying to come up with any explanation for the conversation that just occurred. I reach no conclusion, though. Documents? Emails? I heave a sigh before going into my apartment. 

Rhae is running about the living room, chasing Ghost before turning around and letting Ghost chase her. Dany’s expression hasn’t changed in the two minutes we’ve been apart. 

“What was that about?” she asks me in a hushed tone. 

“It was an FBI agent,” I answer incredulously. 

“FBI?”

“Do you have any idea why the FBI would be investigating Robb?” I ask her. 

She frowns at the mention of his name, and her fingers raise to her mouth. While chewing anxiously on a fingernail, she asks, “You’re not mixed up in anything, are you?”

“I don’t know.”

Rhae comes to a halt in front of us, asking loudly, “Can we get pizza?!”

“Sure,” I answer, eager to switch the subject. “What toppings do you want?”

“Cheese!”

“Cheese it is.”

When the pizza arrives, Rhae insists that I watch her favorite show with her, so Dany shows me how to turn Netflix on. Apparently, I already have an account. 

“There it is!” Rhae announces, pointing at the TV screen where the banner for a show called Stranger Things is placed under the category, “Recently Watched by Jon.”

“You’ve already been watching it,” Dany tells me. 

I shrug, having no idea what it is. Dany uses the remote to move the cursor down to the banner, but then continues on to the banner right beside it. 

She chortles. “You recently watched Blue is the Warmest Color?”

“Is that another show?”

Keeling over in laughter, Dany says, “You know, I could probably learn a lot about you just by scrolling through your Netflix account.”

“Play the show!” Rhae exclaims, hopping up and down. 

“Alright, come sit down,” Dany tells her before selecting Stranger Things and starting up Episode One. 

Rhae hops gleefully to the couch I’d lined with a plush comforter and curls up at her mother’s side. Dany wraps her arm around her daughter as the show begins. To be honest, I don’t really care about whatever show this is and, as good as it looks, I have a hard time keeping my eyes on the TV and off of Dany’s profile. Every now and then, her eyes glance to her side, catching me staring. 

I can’t help myself. Leaning sideways, I press a kiss to the side of her head. 

Her head turns to me, but rather than a chastising look, she lifts her free hand to run her fingers gingerly through my hair and across my scalp. She brings me back to her and I kiss her mouth this time, soft and short, before we both turn our eyes back to the TV. But, her hand stays in my hair, fingers dancing around behind my head and down to the nape of my neck. I take another chance, resting my hand on her thigh, feeling the warmth of her supple skin under my palm, thankful that she’s wearing shorts today. 

When the first episode finishes and the credits roll, Dany lifts the remote and shuts the show off. We both turn to look at Rhae, fast asleep against Dany’s side. 

Regretfully, Dany whispers to me, “I should get her home. She still has her homework to do.”

“It’s still early,” I reply. “Let her nap for a little. I want to show you something.”

Raising a skeptical brow, Dany asks, “What’s that?”

Smiling a bit wickedly, I reply, “Let me show you.”

I stand from the sofa and watch Dany carefully do the same, worming out from under the weight of Rhae and lowering her down atop a furry throw pillow. Rhae is dead to the world, not stirring for a second. I take Dany by the hand and we step around Ghost’s resting form upon the floor, leaving the living room and entering my bedroom. 

Amused, Dany asks, “What do you want to show me?”

I barely allow the question to leave her lips before I’m wrapping her up in my embrace and kissing her the way I’ve longed to for so long, a continuation of the one we started just yesterday. The soft sound of her moaning against my mouth fills my ears and drives me to deepen the kiss. But she pulls back, breathless and blushing. She says quietly, “I wasn’t prepared for that.”

I cup her face in my hands and recapture her lips with mine, dipping my tongue into the warmth of her mouth and tasting the half glass of wine she’d had with dinner. I step forward again, walking her backwards until she’s lowering to sit upon my bed. I move my mouth to her neck, tasting the skin beneath her jaw and down to her collarbone. I unbutton her shirt, starting with the top and working my fingers down. 

“Jon,” she breathes as I lower to my knees before her, between her parted knees. I lean in to run the tip of my tongue around her navel. “Jon,” she tries again, fingers running through my hair as I bring my mouth to her thigh, nipping at the skin there. My fingers find the button of her shorts and pop it open. 

“Jon,” she says again, a bit more forcefully as she lifts my head up to meet her eyes. Her cheeks are bright red, lips parted. “I can’t. Rhae could wake up.”

I let out a breath, trying to release my pent-up sexual energy through it, but knowing it isn’t going to be that easy. I wrap my arms around her hips and rest my cheek upon her thigh. I feel her fingertips graze my scar. 

“I want to,” she whispers. 

I soon stand and take her hand once more. “Lay down with me,” I tell her and crawl onto the bed and turning onto my back. 

She chuckles silently. “Why do I feel like lying down with you is dangerous?” But she imitates me, lying on her back beside me. She buttons her shirt back up, head turned to smile at me. “You look so disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed. I’m just. . .”

Rolling onto her side, Dany flattens her hand upon the center of my chest before sliding it slowly down my body. Her gaze is locked with mine as her palm comes to rest upon the slight bulge in my jeans. “Awe. That’s what it is,” she murmurs, moving her palm against that which is making my heartbeat like a drum inside my chest. 

I swallow hard. “This is mean, what you’re doing right now.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

I shake my head and close the gap between our mouths. I suck her bottom lip into my mouth the way I want so badly to do to her clit. I turn onto my side and slide my hand into her still-unbuttoned shorts and let my fingertips explore her folds through the thin fabric of her panties. Her knee comes to rest atop my hip, her legs parting just enough for my middle finger to succeed in wiggling between her lips to stroke her labia. I feel her wetness. It quickly soaks through the fabric, moistening the tip of my finger.

As I circle her little clit, Dany gasps against my mouth and grabs hold of my wrist. I lean back an inch, asking her questions with my eyes. Her tongue darts out to glide across her lips. Slowly, she drags my hand just out of her shorts only to guide it inside of that thin cloth barrier that kept my fingers from really feeling her pussy. She releases a shuddered breath as my fingers come in contact with her slippery flesh. I resume kissing her, and her hand leave mine, allowing me to do what I know she’ll like. I may not remember losing my virginity, but I remember how to make a girl cum without using my dick, and some would say that’s a far more useful skill. 

Her eyes flutter shut and her chest heaves with uneven breaths. She turns onto her back, legs parting. One lifts up. She plants the bottom of her shoe on the duvet, knee pointed to the ceiling. 

My fingers slide down, curling just enough to circle her opening and draw more of her wetness up to the little swollen nub which brings her so much pleasure. I kiss her ear and feel her shiver when I breath into it. 

She never makes a sound louder than her own breath. Her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip. Her hands clutch the duvet beneath her. She starts to mouth words that I cannot discern. 

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper before bringing her earlobe between my lips and swirling my tongue around it in a similar fashion to how my middle finger swirls around her clit. 

It’s true, too, but not only is Dany beautiful, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Perhaps not objectively – but even so, she would be pretty high on the list. I don’t care about objectivity, though. I don’t need anyone else to think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world – though, they most certainly should. All that matters to me is that I somehow managed to get this girl to trust me, and enjoy my company, and allow me to make her feel the way she’s feeling right now. All I can think about besides her beauty in this moment, is how badly I wish not to fuck it all up. 

She comes down from her high with a quiet giggle, cheeks turning red and her palm clamped over her mouth. Her thighs press tightly together, holding my hand hostage between them as she rolls once more onto her side to face me. Her wonderous eyes stare into me. When her breathing evens, she uncovers her mouth and relaxes enough that I can pull my hand from her shorts. 

Holding eye contact, I lift my hand between us and slide my middle finger, coated in her sticky fluids, into my mouth. The action startles Dany into another fit of giggles. This time, instead of clamping her mouth shut with her hand, she twists onto her stomach and buries her face into my duvet. 

“You taste good,” I assure her, to which she simply shakes her head. 

I lean in close, pressing a kiss to her cheek. I whisper against her skin, “I know I’m missing a lot of time, but in my heart, I feel like I’ve never been happier than when I’m with you.”

Her head turns, showing me her face, so serene and bashful. I think she’s going to speak, and I brace myself for whatever may come, but all she does is simply rest her hand upon my cheek and kiss me tenderly. 

“Mom!” Rhae’s shrill voice echoes from the living room. 

As if struck by a bolt of lightning, Dany jumps up and off the bed, buttoning her shorts and leaving the bedroom faster than I can blink. I make some adjustments down south before following Dany into the living room. 

“What were you doing?” Rhae asks from the sofa, tiredly rubbing at her eyes. 

“I was in the bathroom,” replies Dany. “Are you ready to get home?”

“Noooooooooo,” replies Rhae, drawing out the syllable and slumping her shoulders in disappointment. “Can’t we stay just a liiiiiiiiittle bit longer?” 

“No, we have to go so you can do your homework.”

“I want to do my homework with Jon!”

“Maybe some other time.”

“It’s not fair!” cries Rhae, face contorting with genuine anguish as she slides from the sofa and onto the floor, curling over herself to press her forehead against the rug. Ghost rises and walks over to her, jutting out his big tongue to lap at the back of her head. 

I step close to Dany and, just above a whisper, I tell her, “You can stay as long as you want.”

Her head shakes. “I wish it was that easy, but,” She glances at Rhae, who moans in agony on the floor, “I need to try not to push things too fast. I need to try taking things one step at a time.”

Before she scoops Rhae off the floor, I give Dany a goodbye hug, my arms around her waist, hers around my neck. I feel her not wanting to let go. I want to even less. I squeeze her tight and keep her close for as long as I can. 

One step at a time. . . I can do that. What step are we on now? When is the step where I can tell her I love her? I’ll just hold it in until then.


	5. Chapter 5

The trampoline is the ring. Rhae and I have our dukes up, faces mean and intense, preparing for the fight of our lives. 

“You think I’m scared of you?” I ask. 

Rhae bares her teeth like she’s Ghost and snarls. 

“I ain’t scared of you. You’re going down,” I say. 

“No, _you’re_ going down.”

“I’m going to make you eat grass, little girl.”

“I’m gonna make you eat poop, butthead.”

“Jesus Christ,” I snort, breaking out of character, but that was her tactic all along. She has fractured my defenses by making me laugh and now, she charges, using the momentum of the trampoline to leap onto my head and pummel me to the swaying nylon. Her boney knees dig into my side, and her tiny fists beat on my shoulder. I’m laughing through grunts of pain, curling into the fetal position, and shouting, “I yield, I yield!”

Rhae squeals as the trampoline drops with the weight of Ghost jumping onto the nylon, startling the both of us. Ghost tumbles face first into me and flops onto his side, right across my body. I keep wanting to laugh, but the crushing of my ribs makes it come out breathy and strangled. 

Rhae cackles hysterically, jumping up and down to make Ghost and I bounce. “Ghost is on my trampoline!” she exclaims happily. “Mom! Ghost is on my trampoline!”

Even in my current state, I know that Dany won’t be happy about the dog being on the trampoline. Sure enough, a few seconds later, Dany is climbing up beside me and helping Ghost up. “Stop jumping, Rhae,” she tells her daughter sternly. As soon as she has Ghost off of me and back onto the grass, Rhae lets out a warrior’s wail and jumps on top of me. I fall victim to an unexpected round two of our match, and her knees are even sharper the second time around. 

“I surrendered!” I exclaim. 

“Stop that, Rhae!” orders Dany. “Ghost doesn’t like it when you beat up his dad.”

Finally, Rhae rolls off me, and I pull myself up to a sitting position with a groan, clutching my side where a particularly pointy elbow made contact. I smile meekly at Dany, who shakes her head at me. “Why is it that whenever you come over to watch Rhae for me, I just end up having to watch you watch her?”

I shrug, smiling bashfully. “I think you just like looking at me.”

Her head shakes once more, but I catch the smile that wants to run loose on her face. “I’m almost finished with my homework. But, until then, maybe pick an activity that’s a little less violent?”

“Alright.”

“Promise?”

I extend my arm out to her, erecting my little finger. “Pinky promise.”

Her eyes roll, smile slipping as she hooks her little finger around mine. I pull my arm back then, causing her to fall into me, and I quickly wrap my arms around her and pull her onto the trampoline, rolling her onto her back. She lets out a sharp gasp, and as soon as my fingertips are scurrying across her sides, that gasp turns into a fit of giggles. 

Cackling, Rhae resumes her jumping, and the movement of the nylon causes me to fall half-way on top of Dany while I continue to tickle her. 

“Jon! Jon!” Dany cries through her tearful laughter, her face turning red and hands trying to bat me away. “Stop, Jon! You’re gonna make me pee on you!”

Pulling my hands from her in a flash, my eyes widen, and that’s all the time Dany needs to lurch up and dig her fingers into my own sides, her short nails sending shocks all through my body. “No, no, no, I’m really ticklish!” I say, making high pitched noises and curling back into the fetal position. 

Cackling still, Rhae drops to her knees beside me and helps her mom in tickling the life out of me. 

Eyes watering and throat sore from laughing, I shout, “I yield! Please! I yield!”

The hands leave my wriggling body. I roll onto my back, wondering if I have an in for a sneak attack, but Dany grabs my wrists and swings her leg across my hips, sitting on my abdomen. If we were on solid ground, I could easily overpower her, but on the trampoline, I can’t get the momentum to even sit up. 

“Spit on him!” Rhae cheers. 

I let out a nervous laugh, but there’s a mischievous look in Dany’s eyes. 

“Spit on him, Mom!” 

“Woah, woah, woah,” I try through more nervous laughter. “Don’t spit on me. Dany. Dany, don’t spit on me.”

Her face lowers to mine and I squeeze my eyes shut, scrunching my face and bracing myself for the worst. But all I feel against my flesh is the soft pressure of Dany’s puckered lips, kissing the center of my forehead. My eyes open as her lips press to the tip of my nose. I relax under her and match the kiss she presses to my mouth. 

She leans up then. “Don’t tickle me,” she warns, and after I nod, she releases my wrists and climbs off. Once safely on the grass, she points a finger at Rhae and says, “No more fighting. Mom needs to finish her homework.”

Lying still on my back, I watch Dany as she walks back into the house through the sliding glass door, noticing how great her ass looks from this angle, but my feelings in this moment are much more amorous than lustful. 

I then turn my head to look at Rhae. “You heard her. We’re going to have to think of something else to do.”

She sits on her butt, legs folded like a pretzel in front of her. She picks at a scab on her knee and asks, “Are you and my mom gonna get married?”

“Uh. . .” My eyes widen and for a good couple of seconds I feel paralyzed. Eventually, I manage to pull myself up, and then I’m sitting in front of her. “That’s not something we’ve talked about. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Well,” she began soberly, keeping her eyes trained down at her knee, “Sammie’s mom got a divorce and then got married to this other guy, and now he comes to my school a lot, and he brings everyone in my class cookies because he works at Whole Foods, and at recess he gives everyone helicopter rides, and everyone wants to be friends with Sammie because her new dad is so cool. So, maybe you can get married to my mom, and then you can come to my school, and make everyone wanna be friends with me, too.”

I let out a slow exhale, my mind struggling to process all of this information. “Helicopter rides?”

“It’s when an adult takes your arms and swings you around in a circle until you’re too dizzy to walk. It’s really fun, and Sammie’s new dad is really strong.”

Humming under my breath, I scratch at the back of my head, wondering what Dany would want me to say and wishing she were here. “I don’t know why you would need me there. You’re cool enough all on your own. Everyone should be lining up to be your friend.”

Her head shakes. “No, ‘cause no one brings cookies to my class.”

“It’s all about the cookies then, huh?”

She nods solemnly. 

“Maybe your mom could bring cookies to your class one day. She’s way cooler than I am.”

“It’s not the same,” Rhae whines, uncurling her legs and crawling off the trampoline. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore,” she says, walking with a slump across the backyard and into the house. 

I follow suit, but when I cross into the living room, Rhae is nowhere to be scene. Dany is at the dining table, clacking away at her laptop, but pauses to send me a questioning glance. 

“Is she alright?” she asks me. 

I go to the table and sit down beside her, still feeling awkward about the whole conversation.

“What’s wrong?” asks Dany. 

I shake my head. “Rhae was just telling me something, and I don’t really know what to make of it.”

“What?” asks Dany, voice now dripping with concern, like she’s expecting the worst. “What did she tell you? Is she alright?”

“No, no, I’m sure she’s fine,” I assure her, though I have no way of knowing that. I lower my voice and say, “She told me that she wants me to marry you so that I can come to her class, and bring cookies, and give everyone helicopter rides, or whatever, so that all the kids will want to be friends with her, like apparently they all want to be friends with Sammie, because Sammie’s new dad is so cool.”

Dany stares at me blankly for some time. Her hand lifts to her mouth and she begins to chew on her thumbnail. “What did you say?” she eventually asks. 

“I didn’t know what to say.”

She releases a sigh, pressing her palms to her face. She looks exhausted by the information, but soon that exhaustion begins to look more like despair. Her shoulders hunch and she sniffles against her palm. When she slides her hands from her face, the whites of her eyes have pinkened. 

“What’s wrong?” I ask her, scooting closer to her and taking her hand into both of mine. 

“Nothing,” she replies, shaking her head. “It’s just. . . It isn’t about you, okay? So, please don’t freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out.”

“She’s just never had a father in her life. Ever. Not even when he was alive. And it’s just really hard for her to reconcile missing someone so much when she can’t even remember sharing one moment with him. I feel guilty all the time because I can’t do as much for her as I wish I could, like dropping by her class with treats for everyone like the other parents do, but at the same time, I know that no matter what I do, it’s never going to fill that hole for her.”

I take her in my arms, and she rests her forehead against my shoulder. I rub circles against her back and press kisses to the side of her head. She’s so warm against me, but I feel her shiver, so I tighten my embrace. At this point in my life, it’s hard to imagine Dany being unable to completely fill someone’s heart because she fills mine so full that it aches. But I remember being Rhae’s age, and I remember the shame and the confusion that surrounded not having my father around. No matter how much I loved my mom, and no matter how much she did for me, I still longed for my dad, even though I never even met him, even though I never even knew his name.

Eventually, Dany’s head picks up. “I should go talk to her,” she tells me as she leaves my arms. 

I watch her stand and turn toward the hallway, but before she can even make it out of the kitchen, I dash over to her and take her shoulders in my hands. “Dany,” I say softly. “I love you.”

The room is so deathly silent that I hear the air enter her nose as she breaths in a slow inhale. I hear her throat contract with a hard swallow. I hear the little smack of her bottom lip separating from the top. She blinks about a dozen slow blinks before I finally get a response. 

“I, um. . . Are you sure?” She asks the question like I’ve just told her I have cancer. 

“Yeah,” I reply, wishing I could come up with something a little more profound. 

Her head turns toward the hallway, then back to me. “I really need to check on Rhae.”

“Yeah,” I say again, letting her go and taking a step back. She’s gone a moment later. 

Ghost sits in the living room, cocking his head at me questioningly. I fucked up. I was supposed to be taking things one step at a time, and I went and skipped about twenty. There is just something about seeing Dany so lost that makes me want to become this guiding light for her, but that’s not how she sees me. I don’t guide her anywhere. I don’t rescue her. I barely even help her, since half the time I interact with Rhae, it ends with a tantrum or an existential crisis that Dany then must defuse. The truth is, Dany is my guiding light. I’m always looking to her to bring me this sense of belonging, but unless she agrees that this is where I belong, I’m really just an intruder. 

After a few minutes, I step quietly down the hall, not wanting to interrupt whatever moment Dany is sharing with Rhae, but also not wanting to leave without saying goodbye. Rhae’s bedroom door is open, but I hesitate, hearing the soft sound of crying and Rhae’s voice quietly whimpering, “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”

She’s right. It’s not fair. That she doesn’t have a father isn’t fair. That Dany doesn’t have anyone to co-parent with isn’t fair. That the person I love doesn’t love me back isn’t fair. Sometimes I wonder if waking up from that coma at all was fair. 

The floorboards beneath the carpet creak as I maneuver around the doorframe. Dany’s head turns to me, but I can’t read what her eyes are telling me. She is on Rhae’s bed, back against the headboard. Rhae is in Dany’s lap, face pressed against her chest, sniffling against her t-shirt. 

“I going to go,” I mouth to Dany silently, pointing in the direction of the front door. 

Her lips part like she wants to say something, but they soon seal, and her eyes avert down to Rhae as her fingers graze through the short hairs on the back of her daughter’s head. 

My feet won’t budge. I don’t want to leave, not when they look like that, not when Rhae is so distraught and Dany is so sullen. Does it even matter that she love me? 

Ghost appears, trotting past me. He effortlessly climbs onto Rhae’s bed. He steps over Dany’s legs and immediately settles down in the sliver of mattress beside them that is just big enough for him to stretch out. 

“Mom,” Rhae says, sitting up. 

Dany lifts her hands to wipe away the wetness that stains Rhae’s red cheeks. 

“Can Ghost spend the night with me?” asks Rhae through a pout. 

“Honey, this isn’t Ghost’s home,” answers Dany, wearing a small pout of her own. 

“But he loves me,” replies Rhae, such pain in her voice I can feel the tear that falls from her eyelid deep in my soul. 

“He can stay,” I say, feet still stuck in the doorway. 

Both Dany’s and Rhae’s heads turn to me. 

“I can pick him up in the morning,” I suggest. 

“Okay,” Dany says. 

Rhae doesn’t smile, but I hold onto the hope that Ghost will make her feel better and use that hope to propel me from the room. I move slowly down the hall and to the front door, but as my hand reaches for the doorknob, I feel a warm hand grasp mine and pull me back. And as soon as I’m turned around, I feel another hand on the side of my neck, then parted lips pressing gingerly against mine, warm breath mingling with my own.

“Stay,” Dany murmurs between kisses. 

“I shouldn’t,” I tell her. “One step at a time, right?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, eyes glimmering up at me in such a way that makes me realize I don’t need her to tell me she loves me – as long as she, every now and then, looks at me the way she looks at me now. 

“It’s okay. I understand,” I whisper before pressing one more gentle kiss to her lips. 

I turn and pull the front door open. 

“Jon.”

I look back. 

“It’s hard for me, but I do. . . I feel so much for you. It just takes a while for me to process—"

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have said it anyway.”

“Oh. . .” She frowns, crestfallen.

“I mean that I should have waited,” I clarify quickly. “I wanted to wait. I was going to wait, but waiting is so hard. I think I forgot how to be patient, too, or maybe I never was. You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know.”

She steps close to me, wrapping her arms around my middle and pressing her cheek to my shoulder. “What I can tell you is that I don’t want to lose you,” she breathes. 

Leaning back, I take her face in my hands, tilting her gaze up to meet mine. “You won’t. I’ll be back in the morning to get Ghost, and to kiss you again. Everything’s going to be alright, Dany. At this point, you could literally spit in my face, and I’ll still come crawling back here to bug you and Rhae.”

The corners of her mouth stretch up into a soft smile. 

“But, please don’t spit on me,” I softly request.

“I won’t. I promise.”

* * * * *

The following morning, when I pick Ghost up from his sleepover, Dany asks me a favor. I dare not refuse. We keep it a secret from Rhae until Sunday turns into Monday and I’m meeting Dany at the diner at the very end of her shift. 1:30PM sharp. I wait outside the front door, holding onto Ghost by the leash, and smile when Dany emerges, hopping down the concrete steps while she unties her little apron. 

“Hey, beautiful,” I tell her as she bounces right into my arms. Sometimes, without Rhae around, I remember how young twenty-eight is. Her countenance glitters like she’s a brand new person. 

“Stop,” she insists bashfully.

“Ready to go?”

We get to Rhae’s school ten minutes before class lets out and it seems like every other parent has, too. Ghost’s leash in one hand, Dany’s hand in the other, I join the congregation on the school’s front lawn. Most of the people here, presumably also waiting to pick up their kids, are noticeably older than Dany and me. They all seem to speak to each other using their own secret language. There’s a dress code, too – one that Dany and I are not abiding by. The men are all dressed like they’re on their way to a baseball game, and the women all look like they’re on their way to a yoga class, but with full faces of makeup. Dany sticks out like a sore thumb, her uniform looking more like a Halloween costume – Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, but in yellow. And with her hair in a French braid behind her head, she looks more like an older sibling of a nine-year-old rather than the mother of one. My youth is probably just as noticeable, even though I balk every morning at how old I appear in my bathroom mirror.

I see the golden-haired woman from the carnival milling about the crowd. She’s in jogging attire, but her hair is meticulously curled, and she looks like she has never sweat a day in her life. She holds a stack of colorful cards and hands them to all the balding men and middle-aged women she passes. 

“Feels like we just walked into a cult meeting,” I mutter close to Dany’s ear.

She lets out a quiet giggle. “I wish. That would be way more interesting.”

The woman’s eyes find Dany and me, and her face turns scrutinous, her feet hesitating before carrying her over to us. Dany’s hand leaves mine. She folds her arms instead across her chest, already defensive. 

“Daenerys!” greets the woman – I can’t for the life of me remember her name. 

“Cersei,” states Dany – That’s the name. 

“Here, dear,” says Cersei, plucking a card from the top of the pile and handing it to Dany. “For Tom’s birthday this weekend. I’m inviting everyone in his class. I do hope Rhae will be able to make it.”

Dany takes the invitation and looks down at it. I look at it, too. A single slip of hard paper, about the size of an index card, shiny and saturated with gold and red colors. Saturday, 1:00PM, it reads. 

“Maybe. We’ll see,” Dany eventually replies, and I know her hesitancy is rooted solely in her having classes on Saturday. From her soft tone, I can tell she would love nothing more than to take Rhae to this party, even if it is organized by Cersei. 

A bell rings out from various directions, signaling Cersei’s departure. As she flits off toward the school buildings, the doors open and children pile out, eager to be done with the day’s learning. Ghost grows excited over the influx of moving objects in his view, ears pricking up and head turning left and right. I hold on tight to his leash and scan the crowd for Rhae. Soon enough, I see a scrawny girl with mussed up hair wander out of one of the doors. The sight of her against her classmates makes me smile. She’s an inch shorter than the second shortest person in her class, and her white polo shirt is stained down the front with brown dirt and what could be pizza sauce. That scab on her knee still hasn’t healed up and her forearms are covered in green marker. She looks like she’s lived a hundred years in this one day, her countenance exhausted, but as soon as she spots me, her eyes light up and her mouth stretches into a wide grin, showing off her crooked teeth. 

“Ghost!” she cries out happily, breaking into a sprint across the front lawn, quashing any of my optimism that I’m the one Rhae is excited to see. 

She falls to her knees before Ghost and wraps her thin arms around his neck, pulling him close and pressing her face to his white fur. Ghost’s tongue immediately drops from his mouth to lap at Rhae’s forehead. 

“Mom, look!” she exclaims. “I told you he loves me!”

I let out a laugh and look to Dany, who cringes despite the heartwarming sight.

“Ew, Rhae, don’t let him do that. It’s so nasty,” she says. 

“He’s kissing me!” Rhae explains happily as Ghost slurps his tongue across every inch of Rhae’s small face. 

I tug Ghost back and tell him to cut it out. Rhae stands and puts her little hands around my wrist and tugs on it the same way I tugged on Ghost’s leash. “Come see me on the bars, Jon,” she commands. 

Once we all start moving further into the school, Rhae releases me to skip along ahead of us, past the classrooms and into the playground. Dany smiles at me. This was a good idea. I take her hand in mine again and lace my fingers between hers. 

We go home after Rhae demonstrates her expert monkey bars skills. Their home, I mean, but home all the same. Inside, I untether Ghost, and he bounds alongside Rhae into the living room. 

Dany calls out after her, “You can watch TV for a half hour, but then you’re doing homework! I mean it, Rhae!” She turns to me then, smiling again, tight lipped and blushing. She takes my hand, saying, “Come with me,” and pulls me down the hall. 

It’s the first time I’ve ever been in her bedroom and it sends my heart aflutter. The mid-century furniture matches the shag carpet and geometric wallpaper, and it reminds me that this house was passed down to Dany from her great-uncle. If not for the floral duvet and furry pillows atop the bed, the lavender candles and necklace tree atop the dresser, and the posters of female pop singers thumbtacked to the walls, this would feel more like an elderly person’s room than a twenty-eight-year-old woman’s. 

Pointing toward one of the posters, I say, “I recognize Beyoncé, but I don’t know who the others are.”

Dany chuckles. “Well, you got the most important one.” She shuts the bedroom door and turns the lock. I watch her curiously as she looks about the room, as if trying to find something that isn’t here. Her yellow Dorothy dress has pockets. From one, Dany pulls out her phone and sets it in a port on her bedside table. She taps the screen with her thumb until music starts playing – alternative rock, I think, but I don’t recognize the song. Her fingertips tap against her bottom lip as she looks about the room once more. She takes my hand again and pulls me through a narrow door until we’re in a small bathroom. The tiles of the counter are a blush pink and there is no tub, just a shower stall with a frosted glass door and the same pink tile. Dany turns on the shower, the sound of a dense water spray mixing with the music coming from the bedroom. She looks at the thin, white-leather watch around her right wrist. 

“What are you doing?” I ask, amused. 

She looks up at me again, the same way she had in the foyer: tight-lipped smile and rosy cheeks. It’s embarrassment. “I just don’t want Rhae to hear anything.”

I feel my own cheeks redden, gaining a keen assumption as to what is going through Dany’s mind, but the thought turns me bashful as well. Rather than be presumptuous, I cock an eyebrow and ask, “Hear what?”

Her eyes squint as she lets out a silent laugh. She answers by standing up on her toes, resting her hands on either side of my face, and kissing me. Now, I know for sure what’s going through her mind. I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me, only for her to deepen the kiss. Her lips part, allowing her tongue to dip into my mouth. I feel the temperature rise in the small room from the steam the shower produces, but it’s nothing compared to how hot I am under my clothes and under my skin. 

My jeans feel tight as we kiss. My hands are more confident than my brain, wandering lower and lower, down the curve of Dany’s back to the curve of her butt. She takes a step back but brings me with her. I feel the edge of the pink tile counter press against the backs of my hands, and I lift Dany up so that she’s seated atop it. Her legs separate. I fit perfectly between them, my arm hooked around her waist and the other leaned against the glass mirror behind her head. When I press my hips forward, she moans against my mouth. 

It’s too much, too fast. I have to pull back just to catch my breath and save myself the humiliation of my body losing so much control. 

I pry my lips from hers and squeeze my hand around her hip, staying her on the counter while I try to compose myself enough to remain a gentleman. But the look in Dany’s eyes tell me she’s not interested in a gentleman. Not right now. Her tongue darts out to lick her swollen lips and her back arches. She reaches her hands behind her. Even over the water and the music, I can faintly make out the sound of her dress unzipping, and in a moment, she’s pushing the frock off her shoulders and down around her waist. Her breasts swell against the white lace that encases them as she arches her back once more. Her hands go behind her back again until her bra loosens around her chest, and she is able to shuck the garment off altogether, discarding it onto the checker-tile floor. 

The sight of her steals the breath from my lungs. It’s like finding out your favorite novel has a sequel, or your favorite band has released a new album. Dany is already the most beautiful woman to grace my presence, but now I am seeing so much more of that beauty. I bring my hand to her chest and run the backs of my fingers slowly down the soft flesh of her naked breast. Dany leans forward and presses her mouth to mine, delicate yet ravenous. She tugs up my shirt, and I pull away long enough to finish the job. It joins her bra on the floor by my feet. 

Dany reaches down between us, pulling open a drawer beneath the counter. I have to take a step back as she fishes through its contents. Soon, she frees a small box of Trojans from the clutter. 

I wonder that maybe I should tell her my memory loss has made me into, basically, a virgin, but I don’t want to ruin things by being shy. I wonder optimistically if my body will remember the things my mind cannot – how to please a woman in this manner. 

She tears the condom open with her teeth, and I pull my belt from my jeans, dropping it to the floor. I take the slippery condom from her and use my free hand to push down my jeans and boxers, freeing my maddening erection from its confines. Dany seems more focused on shimmying out of her panties than of looking at my dick, which comforts me as I slide the condom on, as I am suddenly paranoid that I will screw even this up. 

All my insecurities vanish as I watch Dany pull her dress up her torso and over her head until she sits stark naked atop the counter, save for her white Converse. Strands of white-blonde hair that have broken loose of her braid frame her face. Her skin glistens with sweat and moisture from the air. She lifts a leg up, planting the heel of her sneaker on the edge of the counter. I swallow hard, eyes falling down to the cleft between her legs, decorated with a swatch of ivory hair, trimmed short. I quickly rid myself of my clothes, kicking off my shoes in the process. I don’t want anything in the way of me feeling her. 

I regain my position between her legs and cup her face in my hands. I kiss her deeply, and she kisses me back. Her hands glide down my sides. It tickles, and I giggle softly into her mouth. She hooks a leg around my waist and brings me against her. Her hand reaches between us once more, but instead of pulling out a drawer, she takes gentle hold of my erection. Even with the condom on, the warmth from her palm is electrifying. In a moment, though, I discover how her hand pales in comparison to the heat of her pussy. 

She whimpers against my mouth as she nudges me deeper and deeper inside of her. Her muscles contract around me, suffocating me in a way that is euphoric. I drop my face to the curve of her neck and moan against the skin until I’m fitted all the way inside of her. She yanks her hand from between our pelvises and digs her fingers into my lower back. I kiss her flesh, from jaw to collarbone, as I move my hips, drawing out of her some inches before sliding them all right back in. Her chest heaves. I cup her breast and roll the silken flesh in my palm. 

Fingers twist in my hair. She’s touching my scar, but it doesn’t hurt like it would have just a couple weeks ago. I heal faster in her presence. A gentle wind grazes my ear each time Dany lets out a breath along with the soft sounds of pleasure from her throat, and it drives me mad with lust. I squeeze her hips, suck on her flesh, and try not to fuck her too hard, or too slow. More than anything, I want her to love it. To love me. I want her to see that I’m good. Good at fucking, but also just _good._

When I feel on the verge of climax, I tell her through a low whisper close to her ear. She turns her head and connects our mouths. She doesn’t stop kissing me until after I finish and my hips still. I look into her eyes: blue but warm as well, like a bright Summer sky. I don’t want to leave her. I want to stay like this forever. 

“Was that okay?” I ask her quietly. 

She simply nods, smiling softly. Then, she looks at her watch. “Twelve minutes left,” she breathes. 

Twelve minutes. How many times can I say “I love you” in twelve minutes? I step back, letting my softening dick fall from her warmth, and I pull off the condom. There’s a small trash can in the corner, and I drop it in. Dany drops down from the counter and pulls off her shoes and socks. She leans into the shower stall and turns the water faucet to a cooler temperature, dissipating the sauna-feel of the room. Taking a cool shower with her right now sounds like heaven, but we have twelve whole minutes left and I don’t want to waste a moment. 

I take her hips and walk her back against the counter. Her arms go around my neck again and we share a long kiss before I fall to my knees. She chuckles softly as I lift her leg upon my shoulder, and her chuckle soon dissolves into a soft groan as I connect my mouth to her pussy and burry my tongue within her sodden folds, tasting her arousal and swallowing it down. 

“Fuck, baby,” Dany sighs as her fingers tangle in my hair. “Your mouth is so hot.”

While my hands gently knead her ass, I wrap my lips around her clit and let the tip of my tongue dance around the swollen nub. She is soon gyrating her hips against my face and releasing quiet moans into the air around us. “Baby,” she keeps calling me, and it only makes me want to please her more. I suckle her clit as her thigh muscles spasm and her fingertips dig into the back of my head. After Dany’s orgasm crests, I bring my thumb to stroke a few more gasps of pleasure from her as I greedily drink the nectar that seeps from her canal. 

Dany tastes like heaven, and I swallow down all that I can before I’ve stimulated her sensitive flesh beyond what she can stand. She tugs on my hair, separating me from her pussy. She tilts my head up, leans down, and connects our mouths in a hungry, wet kiss. She licks my lips and sucks on my tongue. My cock stirs as we share her essence. 

Soon, Dany parts from me, her lips puffy and face flushed. She looks at her watch again, then whispers, “Six minutes.”

“Shit,” I mutter, sitting back on my heels and staring up at her. “I can’t cum again in six minutes.” 

Dany pulls her watch from her wrist and sets it on the counter. With an unusually sweet smile, given how naughty we just were, she takes my hand and helps me to stand, then pulls me into the shower stall with her. We cling to each other immediately, the way condensation clings to a water glass, and the luke-warm water washes away the sweat and bodily fluids from our skin. The way Dany tucks her head under my chin makes me feel taller than I am, which makes me feel like I can protect her from anything and everything as long as I have her in my arms. 

“I love you,” I tell her, and she responds by tightening her arms around my waist. 

* * * * *

“Why are you wet?” is the first thing Rhae says when Dany and I enter the living room with one minute to spare, eyeing us suspiciously from her spot on the carpet right in front of the TV. 

Dany’s hair is back in a braid that soaks the back of her white t-shirt, and mine falls in damp curls, sticking to the sides of my face. 

Dany replies like she’s rehearsed it in her head prior. “My showerhead was broken, so I had Jon fix it for me, but he got wet while fixing it. Then, I had to take a shower, because I didn’t want to smell like the diner for the rest of the day.”

“What did you do while Mom was in the shower?” Rhae asks me.

I think for a moment. “I was reading.”

“Reading what?”

“Harry Potter.”

“Which one?”

“The best one.”

“Which one’s the best one?”

I think for another moment. “Prisoner of Azkaban.” 

Rhae purses her lips but seems satisfied and turns back to the television. A moment later, though, Dany presses a button on the side of the screen, and it goes black. 

“Homework time,” she says, earning an exaggerate groan from Rhae, who flops back on the carpet like she’s suffered a blow right to the chest. “Jon will help you.”

“Jon forgot how to be smart,” groans Rhae. 

My jaw drops, and I blink slowly at Rhae, pressing a hand to my chest. She snickers in response, twisting around on the carpet like Ghost does when he has an itch on his back.

“I’ll have you know, I took four AP classes in high school,” I reply as if that’s some big achievement now. 

“What’s AP stand for? Absolutely Pathetic?” she blurts out, cackling as soon as the joke leaves her mouth. 

It’s hard to be offended while so impressed by how hilarious she is.

“Rhae!” Dany says like the name is a command in and of itself, offended on my behalf. “You can do your homework by yourself then, and Jon can help me pick up the backyard.”

“No!” cries Rhae, her face washing with fear. “I don’t wanna do it by myself!”

“Then be nice,” Dany demands.

“Fine!” Rhae shouts, moaning like the prospect of being polite is tantamount to torture. 

It takes another minute for Dany to finish prying Rhae up off the floor. When she’s finally sat down at the dining table in front of her homework packet, we get down to business. With Rhae so intent on doing anything but her homework, and me being easily distracted in general, we soon fall into a conversation about the upcoming talent show. 

“Mom won’t let me sing my favorite song for the talent show and it’s not fair,” she tells me. “I don’t even want to sing, but she’s making me, and now I can’t even sing my favorite song.”

“What’s your favorite song?” I ask. 

“Monster Mash.”

I snort out a laugh, completely taken aback, but Rhae looks so serious that I quickly swallow down my amusement. “Well, maybe she thinks it wouldn’t be in theme since it’s a Halloween song, but the talent show is in June.”

“What’s _in theme?_ ”

“It wouldn’t match with the rest of the show.”

Rhae lets out an exasperated groan. “I don’t _care_ if it doesn’t match. I want to sing Monster Mash. It’s not even just a Halloween song. It’s a monster song. If monsters can be real on Halloween, then they can be real in June, too. Tell her I wanna do Monster Mash.”

“You think she’ll listen to me?”

“She likes you. She’ll listen.”

I smile. “Alright. I’ll try.”

For a few moments, Rhae casts her eyes down at her packet and I think she might actually be reading a math equation, but then she says in a low, sober voice, “Ya know when Mom told you how I got lice?”

“Yeah.”

“She always tells people that I got lice, and that I cut all my hair off because I didn’t want her to use the comb on me, but that’s not true.”

“Yeah?”

“She kept saying she had to use the comb on me right after putting the lice shampoo on, but she kept forgetting. Every time she was supposed to do it, she would start doing something else instead. And then she would yell at me when I just even told her she was supposed to use the comb on me. She didn’t even care that I had lice. She just cared about the carpet and the pillows not getting lice. She said if I was a boy, she’d just cut all my hair off, and so I told her I didn’t care about my hair, but that made her angry, too. So then, I took the scissors in the bathroom and cut it all off myself so she’d stop being angry at me all the time. She’s always mean, but sometimes it’s like she doesn’t even like me. She says I’m like my dad more than I’m like her, but she doesn’t like my dad. She said to Nan that my dad was a dead beat.”

I watch her sullen face, cheek rested in her palm and eyes downcast at the tabletop. It’s wild how a matter as simple as a hair style can conjure so many feelings of inadequacy. For me, it was the opposite. I fought and fought with my mom to just let me grow my hair out the way I wanted, but she never budged, and she always got her way in the end. I never understood why she seemed to care more about my appearance than my happiness. It wasn’t until I was out of high school that she explained to me her compulsive need to keep me looking as tidy as possible as a child. She was always afraid that my teachers or the other parents would judge her based on my unkempt appearance. With only her to carry the burden of raising a rambunctious little boy, she grew paranoid that any slight misstep in her parenting technique would lead to an inquisition by her peers.

I tell Rhae, “You know, I never knew who my dad was. My mom raised me all by herself just like how your mom is raising you by herself. Sometimes, she would get angry, be mean, or forget about things she promised to do because there was always so much else to be done all the time. It was never because she didn’t like me, or that she didn’t love me. It was because being a single mom is really, really hard, especially when you’re trying to raise a kid as totally awesome as us. If you were a boring kid, your mom would probably have an easier time, but she doesn’t want you to be boring. She wants you to be you, even if that means she has to work harder.” I reach out and smooth my palm across Rhae’s head, flattening down her unruly tufts of short hair. She does not flinch away from my touch. “Your mom loves you more than she’ll ever love anyone else in the entire world, ever, and absolutely nothing you do will ever change that. That’s the one truth that you can always count on.”

Quietly, Rhae mumbles, “I know she loves me, but I think that if my dad weren’t dead, he would like me better.”

“If your dad were alive, he would love you just as much as your mom loves you, but that doesn’t mean he would take as good care of you or be there for you whenever you need someone. Everything your mom does is for you. It’s always been that way, and it’ll always be that way. It’s hard to see that when you’re young, but when you’re a little older, you’ll understand just how much she does for you. The least you can do is forgive her when she’s not perfect. Because, no one is perfect.”

“Did you forgive your mom?” she asks. 

“Yeah. And she forgave me for being a shit all the time.”

Rhae’s mouth tightens at my use of a bad word, holding in a snicker. “I’m not a shit,” she whispers, only mouthing the final word. 

“You can be a shit, Rhae” I reply. 

She smiles deviously, cheeks round and pink. She’s had enough of this discussion and picks up her pencil, finally getting back to her packet.

* * * * *

Dinnertime comes and goes and so does Rhae’s evening TV time. I stick around to hang out with Dany while Rhae is locked up in the bathroom down the hall, taking an awfully long bath that seems to include five Marvel action figures and a Barbie convertible. Rhae’s dramatic play-monologues can be faintly heard from where we are in Dany’s bedroom. Dany flinches every time we hear a particularly big splash.

As Dany takes out her still-damp braid, I snoop around at the framed photos she has set up along a shelf that runs nearly the entire length of her bedroom wall. They must be family photos because nearly everyone pictured has blonde hair and light eyes. Recessive traits run deep in the Targaryen family, I gather, and it makes a little more sense why Rhae, with her dark features, would feel a little left out. Some photographs are old, their coloring washed in yellow. Some are newer prints, but the style of dress the people in them wear suggests they were taken at least thirty years ago. As far as I can tell, Dany is only in one of the photos: a family portrait style photo where the cameraman holds up a puppet to make you smile big and wide. Dany looks no older than five in the picture, and she stands with a boy about double that age but with similar physical characteristics. 

“Is this your brother?” I ask her. 

She turns and immediately nods. “That’s Viserys.”

“Where is he?” I ask. 

“Gone,” she replies like it’s nothing. “Dead, I mean, but gone even before that.” Her mouth scrunches like she’s thinking of something intense. Her voice brightens when she says, “I had another brother. Rhaegar,” then darkens when she adds, “He died before I was born, though. Car accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her head shakes away my apology like it isn’t necessary. 

“Rhaegar,” I say, contemplating the name. “Is that,” I point in the direction of the hall bathroom just as another loud splash sounds from behind the door, “where you got Rhae from?”

With a wistful smile, Dany explains, “My mom’s name was Rhaella and my eldest brother’s name was Rhaegar. When I was pregnant, I thought that if I had a girl, I would name her Rhaella and if I had a boy, I would name him Rhaegar. But I didn’t want to know the sex until I gave birth, so I just started calling her Rhae for short. Then it sort of stuck, so I ended up just naming her Rhae.”

Noticing the “was” in reference to her mother, I ask, “What happened to your mom?”

“She died of breast cancer when I was in high school. My dad died of a stroke three years ago, but we were estranged after I left home. He wasn’t exactly someone I wanted to be around, and I definitely didn’t want him around Rhae.”

I look at her grimly, reeling from this news like I knew these people. Though Dany’s tone is light, as if her parents’ deaths were nothing more than hiccups in her past, her eyes are glossy with sadness. She’s looking up at where the wall meets the ceiling, hands rested on her hips. 

“I found out I had a great-uncle living in Los Angeles,” she says. “The day I turned eighteen, I moved out here, showed up at this old man’s house, saying I was the grandchild of his long-dead brother. Most of the pictures around this place were already up when I started living here. It feels like it was a hundred years ago. He died a few months after I moved in. I found out I was pregnant the next day, gave up on trying to be a singer, and got this bright idea that I would get married to the guy who knocked me up and start a family of my own. Didn’t exactly turn out the way I wanted it to.”

“So, everyone’s gone?” I ask, but it’s more like a statement. “Everyone in these pictures is dead? It’s just you and Rhae now?”

Her eyes find me, and she nods. It makes my heart ache thinking of all the years Dany spent virtually alone. While the Starks had never been a part of mine and my mom’s lives when I was growing up, at least they existed, and for all I knew, my uncle had been helping us out behind the scenes without me knowing. At least there was the option of coming to him if things were ever really bad. For Dany, there was no one to go to if things got bad. It was all up to her. 

“It’s okay,” she says, still wearing that wistful smile. She says it like I’m the one who needs comforting. She comes close to me, taking my hand in both of hers.

“I don’t like the idea of you being alone,” I tell her. 

“I’m used to it. I do well alone.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I have Rhae.”

I nod, picking up a lock of her hair and twisting it around my finger. “It’s not the same, though. You need someone who can help you.”

“Like you?” she asks softly, eyes peering straight into me with a look I cannot dissect.

I find I’m at a loss for words. I love her, but it’s so much deeper than that. I want to be the one who will be there for her always, to help her when she needs it, and to help her when she thinks she doesn’t need it. I want to be her family and give her back some of what she lost. But I don’t want to scare her by revealing the intricacies of my feelings to her. I can’t risk her running away from me. I can’t risk letting her know just how intensely I feel for her before she is even ready to say she loves me back. I change the subject. “I hear you and Rhae are going to be singing the Monster Mash at her talent show.”

Dany immediately lets go of my hand to presses hers against her face, covering her eyes. Even so, I can see her cheeks turn beet red as she laughs quietly. When her hands fall, there are tears in her eyes and I can’t tell if it’s from her giggles or from the leftover emotion of talking about her family. 

“She’s trying to humiliate me,” she says as her chuckles die. 

Without a thought, I press my thumbs to her cheeks and swipe away the moisture. “It’s her favorite song,” I say through a big smile, excited by the idea of watching Dany sing the novelty classic on stage. “And it is a damn good song.”

Her eyes roll as her arms curl around my middle. She presses her face to my shoulder, and I hug her tight, breathing in the scent of her cherry blossom conditioner. 

“I’m invited, right?” I ask. 

She leans back and looks up at me. “Not if I’m going to have to sing Monster Mash.”

“I’m _only_ going if you sing Monster Mash.”

Her mood softens. “You really want to come?”

“Of course,” I say. “I was going to just show up anyway, but it’d be nice to get an invitation.” 

“You’re invited.”

Rhae’s shrieking voice echoes through the house, shouting, “Mom! I’m finished! I need a towel!”

“I should go,” I then say, though not wanting to go at all. 

“Yeah,” Dany agrees, though some part of me thinks maybe she doesn’t want me to go either. “We get up really early in the morning.”

I nod. “I’ll go.”

Arms still around me, Dany tightens her grip and leans up, kissing me purposefully on the mouth. I kiss her back immediately and in a matter of seconds, her tongue is in my mouth and my hands are on her ass. 

“MOM!” shrieks Rhae even louder than before. 

Dany pulls away quickly, taking a few steps back and straightening her shirt. “Coming!” she shouts out her bedroom door, then turns back to me swiftly and asks, “I’m going to see you tomorrow, right? For Rhae’s boxing lesson?”

My eyes light up at the realization that I’ll get to see Dany again tomorrow without having to persuade her into it. “Definitely.” 

“Okay,” she says happily. She hesitates for a moment, but then bounces back to me and plants one last kiss on my mouth before hurrying off to get Rhae a towel. “Bye!” she shouts as she goes. 

My heart does a flip. I think Rhae might be on to something when she says Dany likes me.


	6. Chapter 6

Friday night I am brought out of a long, hot shower early when my phone starts to ring, vibrating against the marble countertop and singing a little tune. It’s Dany’s name on the screen. I quickly wrap a towel around my waist and answer it, holding my phone an inch from my wet ear. It isn’t Dany on the other end, though. 

“Jon?” Rhae’s little voice asks. 

“Hey, Rhae. What’s up?” I say, somewhat confused. Rhae has never called me out of the blue before and it makes me wonder if something’s the matter. 

“Will you come to Tommen’s birthday party with us tomorrow?” she asks. “My mom says you’ll come if I ask you.”

I remember Cersei and her birthday invitation. I also remember the look on Dany’s face as she realized she wouldn’t be able to take her. “Your mom is taking you? She doesn’t have class tomorrow?”

“She’s not gonna go. She’s ditching so we can go to the party, she said. There’s gonna be a bounce,” Rhae replies.

“A bounce house? Holy cow,” I exclaim. “Yeah, I definitely want to go if there’s going to be a bounce house.” 

“Okay!” Rhae says enthusiastically. 

“I can’t bring Ghost, though. He might scare some of the other kids,” I warn. 

“Oh.” She sounds forlorn, but soon snaps out of it. “That’s okay. We can bring him back a hot dog.”

I chuckle. “Okay. When’s it at again?”

“I dunno,” replies Rhae. There’s a shifting on the other end until I hear Dany’s voice. 

“It’s from one to four. We can get you on the way,” she says. 

“Okay.”

This time when Dany speaks, it isn’t to me. She says, “Pick up the living room. It looks like a Toys R Us exploded in here.” She then says to me, “Hold on. I’m going to my room.”

I go into my room as well, towel around my waist and water dripping down my legs. I hear a door shut, then Dany’s voice. “Are you sure you want to go to the party?”

“Yeah. Sounds like fun,” I say casually, like I’m not constantly dying to spend as much time as possible with Dany and Rhae, but especially Dany. 

“Okay. Good. Because I’m going to hate everyone there. Rhae will have fun, but those parents are truly insufferable. Most of them speak to me like I’m the nine-year-old. You were a good buffer at the carnival, and this will be a lot like that. I just really don’t want to have to talk to anyone.”

“I’ll keep them away from you,” I promise. “Anyone wants to talk to you, they’ve got to go through me first.”

“Good.” I can hear her smiling through the phone. 

“Excuse me. No one talks to my _woman_ without my permission,” I say in my best macho voice. 

She snorts a giggle. “Yeah, say exactly that.”

“I’m excited.”

“You’re always excited for the most unexciting things.”

“I’m excited because I get to see you.”

There’s a moment’s pause on the other end before Dany replies softly, “I’m excited, too.”

* * * * *

Saturday soon comes and I make sure to take Ghost on a long walk before he’ll be cooped up in the apartment all afternoon. Dany gives my cell a ring when she and Rhae are parked out front. Davos holds the building door open for me and we exchanged friendly goodbyes as I passed him. I slide into the passenger seat of Dany’s car, and as soon as I’m buckled, I lean over the console and kiss her. 

“Ew,” Rhae says from the back seat. 

The party is at the home of Cersei and her son Tommen, now ten-years-old, and it becomes clear as soon as we enter through the open front door that this boy’s entire fourth grade class has been invited because there have to be at least thirty other ten-year-olds running around the home and the backyard, and even more adults standing around chatting. There is a giant inflatable castle on the back lawn and a fortune teller reading the cards of a line of soccer moms. There is a long buffet table with all sorts of foods and a Pikachu pinata dangling from a low hanging tree branch. There is a pool with a jacuzzi, the jets going – I hadn’t thought to wear something to swim in. There is a jungle gym behind the pool and a tree house up in the branches above the dangling pinata. 

“Want to go play?” Dany asks Rhae, hand atop the girl’s head. 

Shyly, Rhae scrunches her face and shrugs. I can’t blame her. Where do you even begin in a place like this? We maneuver through the crowd of chatting adults, all holding little plates of finger food. I see Cersei with a couple of other middle-aged women, all in summer sun dresses and big jewelry. Once again Dany does not fit the dress code, but I find her absolutely stunning in her striped t-shirt and her light-wash jeans with the little rips at the knees. Rhae is in her too-big Dodgers shirt and khaki cargo shorts, nearly fitting the “dad” dress code perfectly, something that makes me inwardly chuckle. Long foldable tables stand in rows along a wide deck, covered in table cloths alternating red and gold. We find seats at the end of one of the red tables. I sit beside Dany, and Rhae plants herself atop her mom’s lap. 

“Want me to get food?” I ask Dany. 

Her arms wrap around her daughter’s middle as her face scrunches and her head shakes. She’s just as wary of this party as Rhae is. I remember how freely Rhae played at her school’s carnival night, but I suppose it’s different when you’re at the home of a classmate you aren’t friends with. 

“You okay?” I ask Rhae, reaching out to smooth my hand across the top of her head. 

She gives a silent nod, her eyes darting all about the party as the sound of laughing children and pop music fills the air. 

“You okay?” I ask Dany. She responds in the same manner as her daughter. “We can leave if you want. Go to Wienerschnitzel.”

She blushes, finally cracking a smile. She cranes her head to look at Rhae. “You should go find Tommen and wish him a happy birthday.”

“Why?” Rhae asks. 

“Because he invited you to his party, and that’s the polite thing to do,” Dany replies. She scoots Rhae off her lap and points to where Cersei’s little blonde headed son is commanding a Super Soaker battle on the expanse of grass between the pool and the bouncy castle. “Go tell him happy birthday,” Dany gentle commands. 

Rhae turns with a pained frown and whines, “I don’t want to go.” She wraps her arms around Dany’s neck, holding tight. 

“I’ll go with you,” I say, giving a few pats to the center of Rhae’s back. “Come on. It’ll be real quick.”

“Go, Rhae,” Dany says, prying Rhae from her. “I’ll get you a plate while you’re over there and you can have something to eat.”

Rhae lets out a throaty whimper but concedes. She wraps her short fingers around my wrist and tugs until I’m standing. As we make our way to the battle ground, I keep my hand on Rhae’s shoulder, hoping that it would comfort her, but worrying that it could just be making her feel more awkward. She never pulls away, though. We stop before becoming collateral damage as two boys shoot water at one another from their neon colored guns. Rhae looks up at me with big eyes that know not what to do. 

I’m only about sixty percent sure the kid I think is Tommen is actually Tommen, so instead of marching Rhae up to him, I simply call out, “Tommen!”

The blonde boy stops and turns toward us, lowering his water weapon. I squeeze Rhae’s shoulder, and she awkwardly exclaims, “Happy birthday!”

Rhae turns to leave, but Tommen is already jogging up to us, so I keep Rhae where she is. 

“Thanks,” says the boy when he is before us. “Want to be on our team?”

“Um,” Rhae begins. She looks up at me once more, then back to Tommen and replies apprehensively, “Okay.”

“Cool,” Tommen replies brightly, handing Rhae the green gun in his hands. “You can use this one. We fill them up in the pool.”

Rhae takes the gun, cradling it like a child. Tommen runs off to where a plastic bin holds additional weaponry. I tell Rhae, “Annihilate them,” and she smiles. 

Dany gives me a questioning look when I come back to the table alone. She’s just sitting back down, having fixed a plate full of foods Rhae would like: mini hotdogs, BBQ chips, and strawberries. 

“Sorry,” I tell her. “We’ve lost her to the war effort. All we can do now is pray for her safe return.”

Dany laughs silently. I sit down beside her and steal a chip off the plate. “She doesn’t go to many parties,” she says. “I suppose that’s partly my fault.”

“She’s at this one.”

“Yeah.” She looks dismayed, lost in her head. The locks of hair that frame her face are twisted and pinned behind her head, but the rest is down, flowing freely down her back like an ivory river. 

A balding man with a thick brown beard and a beer belly stops before us. Wearing a jolly smile, he says, “Pleasure seeing you here, Daenerys.”

Mine and Dany’s heads turn up to the man. As her mouth opens to speak, I beat her to it, telling the man sternly, “Back off, buddy. She’s with me.”

Snorting, Dany clamps her hands against her mouth and looks from the man to me, then back to the man with wide eyes. The man looks positively bewildered. Dany quickly unclamps her mouth and decrees, “He was joking. It’s a joke.”

“I was joking,” I explain while laughing at how much I startled him. “I’m sorry. I’m Jon.” I extend my hand to the man, and he reluctantly shakes it, expression still odd. 

“This is Tommen’s dad,” Dany tell me, face beet red and smiling through her embarrassment. 

“Robert,” the man says. His grip is firm, like he’s trying to break my hand. He has to be twenty years my senior, and his stature, even in the God-awful bowling shirt he wears over his wide torso, makes me feel like a little child.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. “This yard is impressive. I would have killed for a yard like this growing up.”

“Thank you for inviting Rhae,” Dany tells him. “She’s having lots of fun.”

Robert ignores Dany to study me. “Are you Rhae’s father?”

“No,” Dany and I say at the same time. 

“Jon’s my boyfriend,” Dany says, and her use of such an official title gives my heart a jolt. 

Robert asks Dany with a twisted eyebrow, “You let your boyfriend spend time with your daughter and her schoolmates? How does her father feel about that?” 

Dany’s face scrunches in much the same way as when we first arrived. She replies curtly, “He’s been dead for eight years, so I really don’t think he cares.”

“He might,” replies Robert, then turns to me with a suspicious look. “What did you say your name was? Jon. . ?”

“Jon Snow,” I answer. 

Robert repeats the name, rolling it around in his mouth like he’s trying to guess its flavor. “Why does that name sound so familiar to me? Have we met?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He looks dissatisfied by my response, but there’s nothing I can do about that. “Well,” he says after a long pause, “enjoy the food. We’re all glad Rhae could make it.”

As soon as the man is out of ear shot, Dany whips toward me and swats my shoulder with the back of her hand. “Really, Jon? That guy fucking terrifies me. He’s old enough to be my father.”

“I think he might think he’s your father.”

She groans, turning her head in a circle like she’s trying to stretch out her neck. “I really hate these people,” she mutters.

“I tried to tell him to back off.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“I promised you I would.” I smile and lean forward, toward her, resting my elbows on my knees. “You said I was your boyfriend.”

Her little smile grew mischievous. “Well, you said I was your woman. That makes you my man.”

I nod in agreement. “That’s right. It does.”

“Do you want to stay over tonight?”

“Sure. You don’t think Cersei and Robert will mind? I’d love to take a late-night skinny dip in that pool.”

Her eyes roll as she tries not to laugh. “I mean at my house, doofus.”

“Oh, well in that case. . . Yes, absolutely.” 

An hour passes and Rhae hasn’t stopped playing for a second. She’s in the bounce house now with Tommen, Tommen’s older brother, and a couple of other kids. Dany keeps a close eye on Rhae until she tells me she needs to find a restroom and passes the supervisor job onto me. 

“You can’t leave me alone here,” I tell her as she stands. “What if the cougars circle?”

“I’m sure you can take care of yourself,” she replies with a wink. 

“Alright,” I say. “But it’s your loss if one of them sweeps me off my feet.”

“I think I’ll be okay.” She leans down and kisses me before heading toward the house. 

Minutes go by as I keep casual watch over Rhae’s obscured silhouette through the mesh wall of the bounce house. Bored, I begin to mess with my phone settings just for something to occupy my mind, but just as I’m enabling dial pad tones, I hear a high-pitched wail coming from the inflatable castle. I train my eyes on the mesh wall, trying to discern which child the sound is coming from, but as the cries of agony continue, they sound enough like Rhae to my ears that I hop up and run toward them. 

Kids slide out of the opened flaps of the bounce house, fleeing like it’s on fire until only Rhae is left inside. I rip open the flaps wider and crawl inside. Rhae is on her knees in the center of the red vinyl floor, sobbing loudly with tears cascading down her face. In her left arm, she cradles her right. 

I take her shoulders in my hands. “Are you okay? What happened?”

She does not respond, only cries harder, so hard she begins to choke on every breath. I scoop her up right then, an arm under her knees and one around her back. It’s awkward sliding out of the inflatable castle like this, but soon my feet are on the ground and I’m carrying her toward the house because I see that Dany still hasn’t returned. Kids and parents alike stare at us as Rhae’s wails never settle. As soon as I cross the threshold into the house, Dany is there, running toward us and wearing a look of panic. 

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her quickly. 

I stand still as Dany attempts to examine her daughter. As soon as she touches Rhae’s right arm, the girl cries so loudly she nearly suffocates on it. 

“Fuck me,” Dany exclaims.

A woman sitting at the kitchen table, spooning mush into a toddler’s mouth says, “Excuse me, miss,” with an disapproving glare. 

Dany turns to her and replies, “Fuck off, _ma’am_.” She turns then to me and says, “I have to get here shoes. Take her to my car. I’ll be right there.” She smacks her car keys into the palm of my hand after I shift the weight of Rhae’s leg to my forearm. 

We don’t talk the entire way to the Emergency Room. For twenty minutes, the car is filled instead with Rhae’s dense, unrelenting sobs. The nurse at the front desk takes pity on Rhae, back in my arms, and allows us through. Still, it takes nearly an hour for Rhae to be taken back for X-Rays. In all this time, Dany doesn’t speak one word to me. I had chalked her stony expression up to her worry about Rhae, but as soon as we are alone together, waiting for Rhae’s X-Rays to finish, she refuses to even look at me. 

“Are you alright?” I ask, but when I raise my hand to touch her shoulder, she flinches from me. “Dany?”

“Are you a Stark?” she abruptly asks, now staring those stony eyes up at me. 

“What?” I ask, startled. 

“Are you a Stark?” she asks again. “Should be a pretty easy question to answer.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

Dany whips out her phone, and I grow even more confused as she angrily taps at the keypad. In a few moments, she turns the screen to me. It’s an article from the Los Angeles Times. 

_Lead Attorney for Stark Inc. and Nephew of Late Business Mogul, Ned Stark, Victim of Near Fatal Hit and Run_

All I can do is blink at the words, unable to think of anything to say. 

Dany slides her phone back into her pocket and says, “I ran into Robert after using the bathroom and he said he remembered why your name sounded so familiar. He got a good kick out of the fact that I’m in a relationship with a Stark.”

“I didn’t know about that article,” I tell her. 

She looks offended. “I’m not mad about the article, Jon. I’m mad because you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“The fact that you still won’t admit to me that you’re a Stark proves that you’ve been lying to me,” she argues, arms folded across her chest protectively. 

“No. I didn’t lie to you. I promised you that I wasn’t working for Robb anymore, and I haven’t been.”

She laughs dryly. “So, it’s my fault then? I should have assumed you were related to him? I’m just a fool, I guess, for not googling you.”

“He’s my cousin,” I confess, “but it doesn’t matter. I barely see him.”

“But you do see him?” she asks, and there’s something in her eyes that is unsettling. A crazed look, like she’s just finding out I’m a serial killer. 

“Sometimes. Not because I want to. We’re not close, Dany.”

“Does he know you’ve been seeing me? Do you talk to him about me? About Rhae?”

“He knows, but I haven’t told him anything about you or Rhae.”

She turns away from me, head shaking. When she turns back, her eyes are watery with a sadness that I cannot comprehend. I’m angry because I don’t understand why she is so upset. I want her to breathe and to realize that Robb doesn’t mean half as much to me as my relationship with her. I would never choose his side over hers, and I feel hurt that she can’t see that. But what stings the most, is when she whispers, “I can’t believe I let you near my daughter.” 

“Dany.” I try to touch her shoulder again, but she steps back. 

“You need to leave. I don’t want you anywhere near us.”

My blood is on fire and my heart feels like it’s separating in two, tearing and swelling. I plead with her now. “Dany, just tell me why you’re upset. Tell me what’s going on, because I don’t understand.” 

She sharply replies, “You know that locket you had? The one with Rhae’s baby picture in it? Robb had someone break into my house in the middle of the night while me and Rhae slept, to take that locket off my dresser, so that he could threaten me and my daughter. And you helped him. I forgave you, stupidly, because I thought you were just some stooge, but you’re his cousin. You’re his family. If he’s a part of your life, I can’t have you in mine, and I definitely can’t have you in my daughter’s.”

The exam room door opens, and the X-Ray technician comes in, pushing Rhae in a wheelchair fit for someone much larger. Rhae’s arm is splinted with cardboard and wrapped in a sling. She looks exhausted and morose, but no longer crying. 

“It’s definitely a break,” the technician says. She clips the X-Rays to a lighted board, showing the bones within Rhae’s right forearm. “She won’t need surgery, though. Just a cast.”

Seeing Rhae this way, broken and in pain, I hate that Dany could think I would ever cause Rhae to suffer. I know I can protect her. Maybe I couldn’t protect her from whatever snapped her arm in the bounce house, but I can protect her from Robb. I can protect her and Dany. But I don’t know how to make Dany believe that. She’s hurt, too, because I did lie to her. I didn’t want her to know I was a Stark, and I foolishly thought I could keep that from her forever. I should have just let her tell me what had happened between her and Robb when the offer was on the table, but I was afraid of knowing, afraid that the truth would make me question my feelings for her. I should have known then that nothing could make me love her any less. 

I stoop down beside Rhae and smooth my hand from the top of her head down to the nape of her neck. “I’m going to go, Rhae.”

Her head turns and her bloodshot eyes find mine. “No,” she whines, reaching out her good arm and taking my hand. She squeezes tight. “Don’t leave.”

“I have to get Ghost his dinner,” I lie. 

“It’s not dinner time,” she argues quietly through a pout.

I look to Dany, but she gives me no sign of what she’s thinking. “Alright,” I tell Rhae. “I’ll stay until you’re all fixed up.” I stand but lean down to press a kiss to the top of Rhae’s head. I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to leave Dany. Without them, I have no one but Ghost. As faithful as Ghost is, a man needs more in his life than a dog. 

All this extra time grants me is another hour of being near Dany while she ignores me. Rhae is too exhausted to make much conversation either. Most of the time we spend waiting for the doctor, is in silence. 

Still in her wheelchair, head lulled to one side sleepily, Rhae quietly asks her mom, “Are you mad at me?”

I watch as Dany’s eyes flicker with something other than anger for the first time since arriving at the hospital. She finally uncrosses her arms, rises from the plastic chair she was sat in, and goes to her daughter. “No, of course not,” she says, cupping Rhae’s face and kissing her forehead. “I’m just upset that you got hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” Rhae says. 

“It’s not your fault. These things happen.”

“If my arm’s broke, how am I gonna do boxing?” Rhae asks. 

“You won’t be able to do it. Not until your arm heals.”

“How long’s that gonna take?”

“Probably about six weeks.”

“Six weeks?” cries Rhae, a picture of distress. Indeed, for a nine-year-old, six weeks is a lifetime. 

The doctor finally arrives with the casting material. The doctor asks what color Rhae would like the cast to be, and she looks to me. 

“What color cast should I get, Jon?” she asks. 

“What’s your favorite color?” I ask back, but Rhae only shrugs. “I like black.”

“Okay, I want black,” says Rhae to the doctor. 

I see Dany’s mouth twist, clearly disliking that choice, but saying nothing of it. Fuck, I’ve disappointed her again. 

When Rhae’s forearm is secured in a case of gauze and black casting material, she is discharged from the hospital and I take the longest walk of my life, following Dany and Rhae to their car so that I can say a lingering goodbye to Rhae while wishing I could just hug the animosity right out of Dany. But, as soon as we reach Dany’s white sedan, she’s helping Rhae into the backseat, buckling her up, and shutting the door. 

“Dany, I’m sorry,” I try before she can open the driver door. “I should have told you Robb is my cousin, but it’s complicated. He was never part of my life growing up. Before he came to see me after my accident, I had met him three times total. I’m not a Stark, alright? I’m not loyal to Robb. I don’t need him in my life. If you want me to choose between him and you, I’ve already chosen you. I love you. I will never see him again. I will never speak to him again. I will never let anyone threaten you ever again. I’ll fucking kill anyone who tries to hurt you or Rhae. You said last week that you didn’t want to lose me. I don’t want to lose you, Dany. I can’t lose you.”

For a long while Dany just stands still, staring at me with one of her unreadable expressions. She looks tired and lost. Eventually, she sucks in a breath, and whimpers, “My kid is hurt.”

As the tears fall down her cheeks, I wrap her up in my arms. I hold her for nearly a minute before she pulls away, sniffling and swiping away the moisture from her face. “I just don’t like feeling like things are out of my control.”

“Neither do I.”

Her eyes shut as she takes in another breath, then she opens them and says, “Get in. I’ll drive you home.”

“Dany,” I stop her with a hand on her shoulder before she turns away. “You _can_ trust me.”

* * * * * 

For days, Dany all but ignores me completely. She ignores my calls and only texts back vague, two-word messages. I want so badly to give her space – to accept my place in the doghouse for me deceit – but it’s killing me inside thinking that she might never forgive me. Rhae’s talent show is this weekend and as much as I want to go, I feel obligated to get Dany’s approval. I show up to the diner around the time I know Dany likes to take her fifteen-minute break. I sit at the counter by the register so that she can’t avoid me. My biggest fear is that I’ll re-experience the very first reaction Dany had to seeing me in the diner: fear and anger. However, that is not what I get when our eyes connect. 

She’s standing before a booth a couple yards from the stool I’m perched upon, writing down the orders of four elderly people when her attention drifts toward me. Maybe she could sense me staring. She doesn’t look happy to see me, but she is resolved, expression soft, like she has been waiting for me to show up all this time. When she’s finished with the booth, she wanders over to me, but crosses behind the counter, leaving a physical barrier between us.

“Hi,” I say quietly, cursing myself for not preparing anything to say. 

“Hi,” she replies. 

“How’s Rhae?” I ask, slightly ashamed at using the little girl as a ploy to keep the conversation going. 

Thankfully, Dany takes the bait. “She’s doing better now. The pain has gone down a lot. She did have a total meltdown as soon as we got home from the hospital, though, once she realized that she wouldn’t be able to write or draw with her right hand, that she wouldn’t be able to do her swimming lessons in July or go to the beach. I’m sure my neighbor really loved hearing all that.”

“He didn’t come at you, did he?”

She shook her head. 

“Dany—"

“I have to put this in,” she interrupts, holding up the ticket she’d written for the booth. 

“Take a break,” I tell her. 

She lets out a sigh, running the back of her hand across her forehead. “Just give me a few minutes.”

After a few minutes have passed, I follow Dany out the diner and around to the side of the building. She leans her back against the building’s façade and casts her gaze down and to the side. 

“I miss you,” I tell her, trying not to stand too close. “It’s only been four days, but it feels like months.”

I’m surprised when Dany softly admits, “I miss you, too.”

I chance a step closer. “I can’t change who I’m related to—"

“I know.”

“—but I can change who my family is.”

Her gaze lifts, eyebrows curling with a hopeful suspicion. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” I say. “Maybe that scares you, but it’s how I feel. From the very first moment I laid eyes on you—” I point to the sidewalk beside us—“right there, I knew you were important to me, or that you would be. Ever since I woke up in that hospital, I’d felt like I was missing something, and it was easy to chalk that feeling up to my memory loss, but it wasn’t my memories I was missing, because as soon as you let me into your life, I haven’t felt like I need anything else. You were what I was missing. You _and_ Rhae.”

“Jon—"

“I know that I fucked up by not telling you I’m a Stark, but I promise, I’ll never lie to you again.”

“Jon—"

I take another step closer. “Forgive me.”

Dany stays silent, looking up at me with parted lips and somber eyes. She swallows. “Did Robb tell you anything about me?”

I take a breath. “He told me some things, but I didn’t take any of them seriously.” 

“What if what he told you is true?” she asks nervously. 

I shake my head in defiance of the suggestion. “It’s not true.”

“But what if it is?” she asks, more adamantly. 

Letting the thought of what Robb had told me enter my mind is enough to make my head hurt, but it’s nothing compared to the heartache of not knowing if Dany would ever speak to me again “It wouldn’t matter,” I tell her. “It wouldn’t change anything.”

“Do you promise?”

I reach out and take her hand in mine, folding her fingers down until only the little one remains erect, and I curled my own around it. “Pinky promise.”

Her other hand lifts to my cheek, combing her fingers across my short beard. I duck down and kiss her until her arms snake around me. She breaks the kiss to press her cheek to my chest, and she holds me like she did when we showered together for the rest of her break. 

“Can I see you later?” I mutter against her hair that smells so sweetly of cherry blossoms. 

“I can get Rhae a babysitter tonight,” Dany says. “She won’t be happy about that.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” she softly insists, pulling away from me and smoothing down her polyester dress. “Can I come over?”

“Of course,” I say, heart thumping in my chest. I want to scoop her up and take her home with me right here and now. 

She smiles sweetly before leaving me, but there is still something else behind it, a lingering sadness that makes me wonder if I have tainted our relationship for good. 

* * * * *

She arrives at my door at five, saying she’ll have to leave by nine. Four hours is a big improvement from thirty minutes. I have a list of restaurants in my head that we can go to for dinner, but as soon as we’re kissing in the foyer, I fear I’ll never be able to stop. 

Her dress is on the floor before we even make it to my bedroom, both of our shoes kicked off somewhere along the way. We fall onto my bed, Dany’s back sinking into the pillowy duvet and her hands are on either side of my neck, thumbs against my jaw as it opens to let her tongue into my mouth. I’m on top of her, my hand between her legs, making the fabric of her panties wet. My erection swells in my jeans, pressing against her thigh. 

“Jon,” Dany breathes while I break to pull off my shirt. 

I toss it over the edge of the bed and look down at her. Her chest heaves. Her lips apart and glistening with saliva. The picture of lust, if not for her eyes. In her eyes, there is something else. 

“Are you okay?” I ask her, hovering above her and sweeping a lock of hair off her forehead. 

Her head shakes slightly. “I’m afraid.”

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” I promise her once more. 

“That’s not why I’m afraid,” she says. “I haven’t loved a man in a really long time. It’s been so long that sometimes I forget I’ve ever loved before.”

We share a few moments of silence before I reply, “I’m afraid, too. Afraid you’ll give up on me.”

I hear her swallow. “I can’t.”

My body relaxes atop her, arms circling around her and holding her tight as I press my nose to the curve of her neck, breathing deeply her scent. Her leg hooks around my hips and she holds me back.

“I love you,” she whispers beside my ear. I never thought three words could make me feel so changed. I cannot remember ten years of my life, but somehow I know that getting Daenerys Targaryen to love me is the greatest accomplishment of my life, and I’m not even sure quite how I managed to succeed at such a feat of impossibility. I could sleep a thousand years in her arms, but I’m much too hard to be tired. I kiss her neck and find the clasp of Dany’s bra behind her back. 

I’m turned onto my back. On her knees now beside me, Dany rids herself of every stitch of clothing. As much as I long to stare at her body for an inconceivable amount of time, I can’t look away from her face: her blue eyes with the little flecks of gold, her plump lips with a sheen of pink, and her cheeks so full and flushed. I reach out and brush her cheek with the backs of my fingers. 

“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her. 

Finally, Dany smiles, and there’s nothing but sweetness there. She unfastens my jeans, and I finish the job, pushing them down my hips and off my legs until I’m as vulnerable as her. Without the urgency of time, my insecurities rise, because she now has leave to examine me for all my flaws, bottom lip between her teeth. I examine her as well but find nothing but more beauty. 

I sit up, hook an arm around her waist and kiss her, hungrily. She kisses me back with equal ferocity, but only for a minute before she’s pushing me back down. I soon discover she has other ideas of what to do with her mouth. She lifts my swollen erection from its resting place across my abdomen and brings her mouth to it. I gulp as her tongue makes contact with my skin. Her ministrations are slow and effortless. She does not devour me like women do in the videos I’ll occasionally watch when I can’t sleep. She tastes me, savors me, enjoys me, until my cock is wet with her saliva. 

“Do you have a condom?” she asks after wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 

I lean up on my elbows, flushed, and reply, “Yeah. In my nightstand.” 

She crawls across my bed and digs through my nightstand drawer until finding what she’s after. 

“Those don’t expire, do they?” I ask. “Because I can’t remember buying them.”

Giggling, Dany shakes her head. “I think we’ll be okay.” She returns to her place beside me, sitting on her knees. She raises the condom to her mouth and tears open the wrapping with her teeth. The image drives me mad with want. I sit up again, kissing her with equal intensity as before. Again, she reciprocates, but only for a short while before pushing me once more onto my back, her smile devious. 

“Stay,” she sweetly commands as she flings the condom wrapper off the side of the bed. 

I watch while she rolls the latex onto my erection, but it isn’t until she’s straddling my lap that my heartbeat turns erratic. I rest my hands on her thighs and gently squeeze the flesh as she lowers herself upon me. She breathes slow and deliberate as her inner muscles engulf me inch by inch. Alone in this apartment, there’s no need for background noise. All is silent except the sound of our joining. As soon as she has filled herself with me, I find I cannot abide by her command a second longer. I lift myself up on one hand and, for a third time, I hook my arm around her and connect our mouths. She does not push me down this time, rather she wraps her arms around my neck as she rolls her hips in my lap. I slide my hand to her ass and pull her closer to me; I feel her pelvis against mine. 

“Fuck, baby,” she breathes into my mouth. Her eyes shut, forehead resting against mine. I lift my hips against her in a slow rhythm, and each time I press upward, Dany’s throat makes a quiet whimper. “Jon,” she breathes. 

“Dany,” I breathe back. 

Her hand dips between us and I can just feel the tips of her fingers grazing the base of my cock. She drops her forehead to my shoulder, gyrating her hips while rubbing her clit. She whimpers when I suck her earlobe between my teeth.

Another minute of this and she’s digging her nails into the back of my shoulder, body spasming, and moaning my name – but sometimes just “baby” – over and over again. I wrap both arms around her and keep her in a tight embrace as I lie flat. She’s stopped moving except to quiver in my arms, her erratic breaths hitting my shoulder in warm puffs. I stay inside her, still hard and aching for release, but we simply rest here for some time, until Dany’s body calms. 

She presses a kiss to my cheek. I turn my head so that the next one meets my lips. Her hand rests upon my cheek and she giggles quietly, nose scrunching. 

“What?” I ask, smiling. 

“I came.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, I could tell.”

“It just feels nice not to have to cum silently for a change.”

“Well, you’ve totally traumatized Ghost.”

Dany leans up, sitting upright in my lap, and just that much movement causes an involuntary moan to rumble through my throat. She looks behind her, at my open bedroom door. Ghost is somewhere in the living room, probably sleeping. “I don’t think he’s paying attention,” Dany says. 

“Dany,” I whine, squeezing her hips while pushing mine upward. 

Her breath hitches and she looks down at me with a mischievous stare. “You want to fuck me, baby?” she asks hotly. 

In one swift movement, I sit up, grab her around the waist and roll her onto her back. In the process my cock slips from her inner grasp, but I quickly mitigate that by pushing into her as deep as I can go.

Dany gasps. 

I clutch her wrists and hold them down upon the duvet, on either side of her head. My mouth is inches from hers when I ask, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

Eyes wide with lust, Dany answers with a deliberate nod, up, down, up, down. Maybe my body does remember things my mind does not, or maybe it’s because I’m with the woman I love, but everything we do together feels so natural and not at all awkward. Eventually, we’ll get tired, but for now I want nothing more than to stay this way forever, just the two of us, in this bed, moaning and grinding, and dying little deaths all wrapped up in each other. It doesn’t take long for me to finish, releasing my seed into the condom as I thrust myself inside Dany the last couple of times. 

Now, we lie side by side, naked, spent and facing each other. Dany’s eyes study my face, her hand in my hair and fingertips dancing across my scalp while my hand glides slowly up and down her hip. 

“Does it hurt?” she asks, touching my scar. 

“Not anymore,” I say. “I get headaches sometimes, though.”

She steadies her hand upon my head. “I hated reading that article,” she tells me, just above a whisper. 

“I know.”

“It hadn’t really occurred to me until I read it, that you almost died.” She looks so sad, as she did in the parking lot earlier, and I hate that there are things about me that can take away her happiness so quickly. “I almost lost you before I even knew I wanted you. The part that gets me the most is that I probably wouldn’t have even known about it if you had died. I watch the news sometimes, but I barely pay attention, and I definitely don’t read the LA Times. If I did find out about it, though, I probably wouldn’t have even cared.”

I feel a sadness wash over me at that, because that had not occurred to me either. Had I died in that crash, I would have died a completely different person than the one I am now, one who had yet to earn the love of Daenerys Targaryen, or the friendship of little Rhae Targaryen. 

“I’m just really glad you’re here,” Dany says, scooting forward so that we’re flush against each other, our legs interlacing. She kisses me, soft and slow, then whispers, “I love you.”

I can’t not smile at that. “I love you, too,” I tell her before resuming our tender kiss. 

All my researching of decent restaurants nearby was for not because we do not pry ourselves out of my bed until Dany needs desperately to get home and relieve Nan, her neighbor and on-call babysitter. 

We walk together down to her car. Before she leaves, she asks me, “You’re still coming to Rhae’s talent show, right?”

“You’re still singing Monster Mash, right?”

Her cheeks redden and she smiles a wide, bashful smile. “Yes, and I will be dressed as a witch.”

I cock an eyebrow. “A sexy witch?”

“Maybe just a little sexy.”

“I’ll be there,” I promise. 

She turns to leave, but before she makes it two steps, she turns back around and suggests, “Maybe we can go together.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, maybe you can stay over Friday night.” Her smile turns cute, like she’s about to ask a favor. “And maybe you can watch Rhae while I’m at school on Saturday, and then we can all go to the talent show together after I get back?”

I chuckle silently. Relationships are all about reciprocity, though, right? I get to spend the night with the most breathtaking woman on Earth, and she gets a free babysitter. And it makes me giddy that she now trusts me enough to watch her daughter one-on-one for several hours. “Yeah, I like that plan.”

“Great.” Before she departs, she hurries back to me and presses an innocent kiss to my lips, like we are teenagers on a first date rather than adults who just finished a four-hour fuck session. 

* * * * *

As embarrassed as Dany is about the song selection, Rhae successfully forces her to do a rehearsal of tomorrow’s talent routine in their living room, with me watching and playing Simon Cowell from the sofa. The entire time, I cannot contain my wild grin, caught between wanting to laugh hysterically and wanting to join along. My palms are pressed flat together before my mouth as if in prayer, but what I pray for is my ability to film this whole thing at the talent show, when these two ladies will be all dressed up. 

“Remember!” Rhae shouts as soon as they’ve finished, before I can get any of my many, many comments out, “You’ve gotta pretend that I am a vampire and she’s a witch!”

Dany, unwilling to be judged by me, exits the “stage” and crawls onto the sofa beside me, burying her red face in the back cushions. 

“Well?!” asks Rhae impatiently, speaking at a decibel that keeps Ghost’s attention on her, his eyes attentive and ears perked up. 

I drop my hands and shake my head. “I think that was the most amazing performance I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Rhae beams, hoping up and down. Her black cast is covered in silver Sharpee, the signatures of her classmates, of Dany, and Nan. I drew Bart Simpson on her wrist with a little speech bubble saying, “Eat my shorts.” It made Rhae laugh, and Dany roll her eyes. 

“I’m so excited!” Rhae announces. 

“You’re not nervous?” I ask skeptically, as I have always hated standing up in front of crowds. 

“Why would I be nervous?” she asks. “Mine’s gonna be the best outta everyone’s. Jon, do you want to watch Rambo with me tomorrow?”

Dany picks her head up. “No Rambo,” she states. “Nothing rated R. You know that, Rhae.”

Rhae stops bouncing immediately, face falling into a bewildered scowl. “Is John Wick rated R?”

“Yes. No John Wick either.”

A sharp screech escapes Rhae’s mouth before she flings herself down onto the carpet like a dead man’s float. She rolls onto her back a second later and asks, “What about Reservoir Dogs?”

“How do you know about Reservoir Dogs?” asks Dany incredulously. “No, you can’t watch that either. You can watch Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Rhae groans, hitting her injured arm against the floor and then immediately curling into herself from the pain. Dany gets up and helps Rhae to her knees, pushing the girl’s hair off her forehead to see that her daughter’s tears are not genuine. “You can watch San Andreas,” Dany suggests.

Silent now, Rhae’s face settles to neutral and her eyes dart about ponderously. Slowly, the corners of her mouth twist upward in a wicked smile directed at me. “Jon, do you wanna watch San Andreas tomorrow?”

I chuckle. “I’ve never heard of it, but sure.”

“It’s got the Rock in it!” Rhae shouts, hopping back to her feet excitedly. 

My eyebrows furrow as I contemplate the name. “The wrestler? This is a wrestling movie?”

Dany shakes her head at me with that smile that tells me my memory loss is making a fool out of me again. No one answers my question, but I’m down to watch wrestling if that’s what it is.

“It’s time for bed, Rhae,” Dany then says, and I immediately forget all about wrestling and movies because if it’s time for Rhae to go to bed, that means alone time with Dany.

This causes another heavy groan to escape Rhae’s throat. The only thing that turns it all around is when Dany assures Rhae that she can bring Ghost into her room for a sleepover. “But don’t let him lick your face,” she tries. “It’s not good for your skin.”

Rhae urges Ghost up from his resting place in the carpet by giving the scruff of his neck a tug. She skips back to her bedroom with Ghost happily trotting alongside her. 

Dany is in my lap a minute later and as we kiss, it’s all I can do not to rip apart the buttons of her flannel shirt in one go. Sitting on my thighs, knees on either side of my hips, Dany asks, “Do you like being with us?” The “us” in this question stands out. She knows I like being with her, but she’s still trepidatious about her being a packaged deal with Rhae. 

“Yes,” I tell her straight. 

“Because, I know she can be a lot sometimes.”

“I was worse.”

She smiles, her fingers tangling in my hair to graze my scalp, something I’ve grown to expect during intimate moments with her. “You always say that, but I don’t believe you. You’re very. . . chill.”

“Well, I think puberty had a lot to do with it. As soon as I started jerking off on the regular, I really mellowed out.”

Dany snorts a laugh, ducking her head and letting her loose hair fall down like curtains around her face. I scoop it all up, twist it, and settle it behind her back. She lifts her head and there’s a twinkle in her eye as she asks, “Do you think your mom would have liked me?”

“Hard to say. The last memory I have of her, I was nineteen, and she was basically threatening me into not dating anyone. I can get easily distracted, you know. But, yeah. If she were still around, I think she’d love you. You two would probably get along really well. I mean, you both love rolling your eyes at me.”

Dany’s smile widens. 

I swallow and ask her, “Do you think you’d ever want to get married again?”

Her smile falls, replaced by a look of nervousness. 

Quickly, I add, “Hypothetically, I mean. I’m just curious.” 

She slides from my lap, which I take in the moment as a bad sign, but then she simply settles beside me, legs draped over my lap and her cheek rested against the soft back of the sofa. Looking into my eyes, she answers, “Yeah, I would. I suppose it would depend on who was asking me, though. Like. . . Chris Evens? I’d say yes to Chris Evans.”

Eyebrows furrowing, I ask, “The guy from Fantastic Four?”

After a soft chuckle, Dany coos, “You are such a cutie.”

Blushing, I ask, “What about. . .” I stop myself, humming under my breath until deciding not to press forward with the question. “Never mind.”

“Tell me,” she insists. 

I don’t look her in the eye, instead focusing on my hands that have been absentmindedly massaging Dany’s calf muscle through her leggings. “Hypothetically, at some point in the future, do you think you’d want to have more kids?”

For some time, I hear no response, and I regret ever asking. It was a ridiculous question anyway. All of it was ridiculous. Who was I to think about marriage and babies when I don’t even have a job or even remember the majority of my adulthood? I turn to her finally and quickly explain, “It doesn’t matter. Like I said, it was a hypothetical question. You don’t need to answer.”

“I would,” she then says, voice soft and sweet, just like her smile. “In the future, I mean. When I’m finished with school and my income isn’t derived solely from a part-time waitressing gig. When Rhae is a little older. I would want to have another kid. . . hypothetically.” 

“I would, too,” I confess. “In the future. Hypothetically.” 

Hand resting on my cheek, Dany leans forward and gifts me a ginger kiss, her chapstick clinging to my lips as she slowly pulls back. In a whisper, she asks, “You want to go to bed?”

I’m quick to nod, and she pulls herself up from the sofa. I take her hand, and she leads me down the hall. I hear Rhae’s voice from inside her bedroom, and there’s light coming from under the door. Dany peaks into Rhae’s room and says, “Bedtime, Rhae. Lights out.”

Rhae’s voice comes back. “I’m reading Ghost my book.”

“You can read to him in the morning,” Dany replies. “I mean it. It’s almost eleven.”

She shuts Rhae’s door, offers me a smile, and then leads me the rest of the way into her own bedroom, shutting that door behind us as well. 

Standing just before me, Dany quietly whispers, “We have to be quiet.” She presses her index finger to my lips as she rises up on her toes, then replaces her finger with her own mouth. I take her hips in my hands and kiss her back as silently as possible while still getting to taste the inner crevices of her mouth, and the sweetness of her tongue.

She pulls away from me suddenly, going to the bedroom door and turning the lock. She swiftly crosses the room to switch on her bedside lamp, then back to the door to switch off the overhead light, casting the room in a dim amber glow. She goes then to the bathroom, disappearing inside of it long enough to get her little box of Trojans. I stand where I am, watching amusedly as she sets everything up the way it needs to be. She goes back to the nightstand and sets the condoms atop it, then turns toward me. She chews her bottom lip and rings her hands before her, anxious like we’ve never done this before, but I suppose we haven’t, to the extent that we’ve never had sex in her bed or spent the night together.

Closing the gap between us, I snake my arms around her waist and pull her into a firm embrace before lifting her off her feet. Her legs and arms wrap around me. I climb atop her bed and lie her flat below me. The springs in the mattress squeak, and the headboard knocks against the wall. Dany presses her index finger to her lips in another warning. I nod and climb off the bed with care not to make a sound. Dany watches as I undress down to my boxers with a glimmer in her eye. I lift her left foot, peel off her sock and drop it to the floor. I lift her right foot next and do the same. Dany’s nose scrunches when I press a kiss to the top of her toes. 

I crawl to her, settling between her legs and unbutton her shirt, starting with the top, and as I work my way down, I kiss the skin that I reveal. She isn’t wearing a bra this time, and when her torso is uncovered fully, I latch onto her breast, suckling her rosy nipples one after the other. Each little pleasured sigh that leaves Dany’s mouth sends a shiver down to my growing erection. I leave wet kisses down to her navel, then down even further to kiss her through the thin black fabric of her leggings. I put my mouth over her crotch and lick the fabric. She lets out a long, quavering breath as her knees lift and her thighs part. 

I get her leggings off and find she’s not wearing panties either. The aroma alone is enough to get me fully erect, but there’s time enough to fuck her later. I return my mouth to her uncovered pussy and taste her wetness. She has a hand on the back of my head and when I cast my gaze up at her, I see the other one is planted firmly upon her mouth. I hold her gaze as I glide my tongue along her inner lips. I suckle her clit as I did her nipples, rolling the tip of my tongue around the swollen nub. She breathes through her nose, fast and uneven. I slide my hand up to fondle her breast, kneading the supple flesh. 

Dany’s hand leaves her mouth to grab hold of mine. Our fingers lacing together in a firm grip. My other hand is on her thigh, pressing it to the bed and keeping her open so that I can dip my tongue inside of her. I draw out her fluids and drink them up.

Her hips are moving, gyrating up and down like she’s trying to hump my face. I look up again and see that her eyes are closed, and her teeth are holding her bottom lip in a death grip. I move my hand from her thigh and slide my middle finger into her pussy as far as it will go. I draw it out, then press my index finger in with it, feeling her inner muscles contract around them. For a short time, I fuck her like this as my tongue plays with her clit, but the sounds of my fingers pumping in and out of her wetness is so great that Dany has to sit up and stop me with a warning, pressing her finger again to her lips. 

I sit up as well and take her face in my hands, attaching my mouth to hers in a deep, ardent kiss, sliding my tongue against hers to give her a taste of her own flavor. She must like it because she eagerly sucks on my tongue, and then my bottom lip. 

“We should get under the blankets,” she says in a breath that is barely audible. 

I answer with a nod, and we separate from each other. She pushes her shirt from her shoulders, dropping it to the floor, and I tug off my boxers. She crawls to the nightstand, takes a condom from the box, and peels the latex from its plastic wrapping. I pull back the blankets: a quilt made of light, floral fabrics, and a lavender sheet. She flips the lamp light off. Now, the only light keeping us out of sheer darkness is the pale streams of light coming in from the moon and the streetlamp outside Dany’s window. 

We join under the covers, our bodies pressed together and her leg around my hip. I feel my bare cock against her bare pussy. It takes all my strength not to enter her right this moment. As her hands roll the condom onto my throbbing erection, she presses her lips to my ear and whispers, “I need you to fuck me, but really quiet.” Her warm breath sends shivers down my spine and straight to my cock.

I replace her hand with mine and guide my swollen cock to her slick opening. Even with the sheet and quilt to muffle the sound, I can still hear her arousal. I press my lips to her ear this time, and say, “I can’t help it that your pussy is so noisy.”

She presses her forehead to my shoulder, her body quivering with silent laughter. I push into her then, slow, and her body stills. She inhales deeply and holds the breath until I’m all the way inside her. I roll her onto her back, attach my mouth to her neck, and move my hips back and forth as leisurely as possible. Her breaths plume against my ear, giving my hot skin goosebumps. It makes me want to fuck her faster, but if ever my pace increases above _agonizingly slow,_ the headboard rattles and the squishy sounds I would normally love cause me anxiety. The very last thing I want is for Rhae to become privy to what I’m doing to her mom right now. I have a feeling it’s going to take a while for me to cum, but then decide that’s not such a bad thing. Not when Dany is breathing such sweetly sinful things into my ear. 

“You feel so good, baby” she tells me, so quiet that someone standing at the foot of the bed wouldn’t be able to hear. “So fucking good,” she tells me. “I want you to make me cum with just your cock inside me.”

By the time I feel her body start to react like she’s nearing the edge, I know my own orgasm is soon approaching. I’m perspiring so much in the June heat that my hair is damp and a drop of sweat rolls off my nose and onto Dany’s cheek. My sweat is her sweat now, our bodies slick with it. 

She doesn’t whisper anything to me when she cums, but I feel it. Her body shakes. Her fingers dig into my back. Her hips lift and twist like she’s trying to feel even more of me than there is to offer. Her mouth latches to my shoulder, and she bites me, hard. I’m too far gone to feel anything but pleasure, though. It rushes through me, filling me up. My blood is hot, my skin hotter, and my heart seizes in my chest as my body finally releases all of the pent-up lust and passion and love I’d been holding in since the last time Dany and I shared a bed. In trying not to moan, I instead whimper beside Dany’s ear as I empty myself inside of her – or, as I would be if not for the condom. 

I collapse on top of her, suddenly exhausted, head spinning. Her legs wrap tightly around my hips and she pushes the blankets off of us, relieving our overheated bodies. I start to feel the sting from where her teeth dug into my skin, but she presses soothing kisses there. 

After a minute, I am forced to disentangle from her before my dick deflates enough for the condom to slip off inside her. On wobbling legs, I go to the bathroom and dispose of the thing. When I return, Dany is on her side, facing the vacant side of the queen-sized bed. Lying naked in the moonglow, she looks like a goddess. If my body was able, the sight would get me hard in a matter of seconds. I rest beside her and she immediately turns me onto my back and swings her leg over to straddle my lap. 

Perched on top of me, I gaze up at her nakedness, her sweet face, and her hair that flows freely down her shoulders, the ends tickling her erect nipples. She does not try to rouse me – it would, unfortunately, not result in anything if she had. She just sits gently upon my abdomen, my flaccid cock nestled under her soft butt. She takes my hand in hers and raises it to her mouth. She kisses my palm with closed lips. She kisses each of my fingers, then turns it around to kiss each of my knuckles. 

In awe of her, I say, “You are the most beautiful. . . _anyone_ I have ever seen.”

She smiles, showing me her big, perfect teeth. She plays with my hand in hers, and replies, “You are, too.”

She leans down, curling her arms under mine, and I embrace her tightly. Her cheek upon my shoulder, she whispers, “I love you, Jon.”

My heart full enough to burst, I reply, “I love you, Dany.”


	7. Chapter 7

I sense the morning sun upon my face before I find the strength to peel open my eyelids and welcome myself back to reality. I feel like I’ve been trapped in a dream for a century. Nothing feels quite real. For a time, I don’t know where I am, but then I look beside me and see Dany upon the bed – her bed. She lies on her stomach just beside me, cheek upon the pillow, lost in a soundless sleep. She’s naked still, the purple sheet draped across her lower half, exposing the smooth expanse of her back to the early morning. My chest hurts watching her, and I tear my eyes away. 

My stomach turns. I’m naked, too, and reek of her. I climb out of bed as quietly as I can, finding my clothes and taking them into the en-suite. I look at myself in the mirror, hands gripping the edge of the counter. I fucked her here, too. I turn on the sink faucet and wet my face. I scrub my hands with soap and use the mouthwash in the medicine cabinet. When I’m dressed, I go back into the bedroom, planning to make a swift exit before I wake Dany up with my mental breakdown. 

But I stop. Dany stirs, her throat rumbling a sleepy groan. Her arm outstretches, resting on the empty space I recently occupied, but she does not awaken. 

On the wall opposite the bedroom door is Dany’s shrine of female pop singers who I can now identify all of by name: Beyoncé, Florence Welch, Lana Del Rey and FKA Twigs. When I turn to the door, I am confronted by the shelf of Targaryen family photographs all in a line, their light eyes staring into my soul like ominous beings. I still cannot pick out Dany’s immediate relatives – her mother, her father, her eldest brother – but there is a darkness inside of me that says they know. All of them. They know what I’ve done just as I do now.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think of what to do, but my brain isn’t done with me yet. My dreams were only the start. There’s so much more of my past that comes to me in these moments. Not just the private investigator, not just the party, not just Dany. I remember the FBI. I remember the accident. I remember Theon.

I run from the room, run down the hall, and run out the front door, barefooted and near hyperventilation. I don’t stop running until I’m in the street in front of Dany’s house. I can hear my heartbeat thumping loudly in my ears. I train my eyes, focusing on every car parked along the narrow road until I see a black Mercedes. No one who lives in this neighborhood would drive a Mercedes. I march up to it and see the shadowy silhouette of a man behind the wheel, but he must see me too, because the ignition turns on and a moment later, the car is turning out of its parking spot so fast the tires screech against the asphalt. I have to leap toward the sidewalk just to avoid being pummeled. 

The entire world is spinning. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, but nothing helps the throbbing pain that accompanies all these memories. Even my scar begins to sting for the first time in months. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter, angry, exasperated, and sick to my stomach. 

I pull my phone from my pocket and go to my contacts before realizing that this is a new phone, because I apparently couldn’t figure out that the passcode for my old one was my own fucking birthday. I try to dial by memory, something I have in abundance now. My third try sticks and I press the phone to my ear. It’s Robb’s personal assistant, a girl named Heather who doesn’t get paid nearly enough, so she is quick to tell me exactly where he’ll be at noon – the driving range of course, because God forbid he spend a Saturday with his family. 

Needing my shoes, I run back into the house. In such a hurry, and mind in such a flurry, I don’t even realize I’ve whizzed right past Rhae in the kitchen until I’m already in the living room, toeing on my shoes and kneeling to tie the laces. Rhae comes into the living room, a big grin plastered on her face. She’s wearing rainbow leggings and an oversized Ninja Turtles t-shirt. In her hands is a large ceramic bowl. 

“Jon, I made you breakfast!” she exclaims. “It’s Fruity Pebbles, Frosted Flakes, _and_ Cinnamon Toast Crunch all mixed together! The best cereals!”

I can’t help but grimace at how awful that combination sounds. My shoes tied, I stand, put my hand atop her head and say, “I’m sorry, Rhae. I’ve got to go.”

“What?” she asks, startled and confused. She follows me as I move toward the front door. I hear the contents of the bowl in her hands slosh onto the linoleum floor as she does. “Where are you going? You’re supposed to watch me today. We’re gonna watch San Andreas.”

When I reach the foyer, I turn and say, “I’ll be back, alright? Don’t worry. I just have to go for now. Will you take care of Ghost for me until I get back?”

She just blinks her brown eyes up at me, mouth agape and eyebrows furrowed. I don’t have time to coax a response from her, though, so I turn back to the door. As soon as I do, however, I come face to face with Dany, who stands just within the hallway, wearing quite a similar expression as Rhae. She’s dressed now, in the same thing she was wearing last night, her arms folded across her chest. Her lips part, but she says nothing. Her eyes, though – they express more than words ever could, and I feel her sadness deep in the center of my soul. She knows exactly what has happened – that I remember everything now.

“I have to go,” I tell her earnestly. 

Still, she does not respond. There are so many things I want to say to her, but there isn’t time, and I don’t think I could get the words out of me even if there was time. So, I leave. 

I take an Uber to my bank – the one where my safety deposit box is. The bank manager looks at me funny when I approach him, unused to seeing me in wrinkled clothes and slept on hair. He takes me back to the vault, then gives me my privacy. I go to my box and enter the passcode. I take out every item within the box and set them aside one by one. My passport, a small stack of letters my mother had written to me, and. . .

There’s nothing else. 

My blood boils. I pick up the box and throw the hunk of steel against the wall. The manager rushes in and I spend the next five minutes drilling him about who he let access my safety deposit box. He says he doesn’t remember, but I hardly believe him. I take what is mine and leave, not willing to give him the satisfaction of my continued business. 

I take another Uber home. It isn’t hard to fathom Robb finding out about my security deposit box, but I too-optimistically assume that my backup hasn’t been found. 

Davos greets me at the door, but I don’t have time for pleasantries. I don’t even wait for the elevator. I run up twelve flights of stairs and burst into my apartment drenched in sweat. I go straight for the walk-in shower and drop to my knees. I run my palms across the turquoise tile, looking for the places where the grout is slightly whiter than the rest. When I find the spot I’m searching for, I grab a towel from under the sink and wrap it around my hand. One sharp punch crumbles the tiles and turns the grout to powder. I reach my hand into the vacant space – the hole I’d dug through the wall specifically for keeping safe the hard drive where tens of thousands of sensitive documents regarding Stark Incorporated are stored. I don’t let myself panic until I am sure I feel nothing. 

I bring up the flashlight on my phone and point it inside the hole. My hand was not deceiving me. There’s no hard drive. There’s nothing. 

“Fuck!” I shout, throwing my phone so hard that it flies out of the bathroom and slams into the side of my bed before dropping to the area rug. “God fucking damn it! Fuck!” I clutch each side of my head, digging my fingers into my scalp like there are buttons in my skull that can somehow change everything back, back to before I remembered all the things that I know. I never should have fallen asleep last night. 

My back hits the shower wall, as does the back of my head, adding to the pain I feel all over my body. I think of Ygritte. I think of Robb. I think of Dany. I think of Theon. I think of my mom. I keel, hurling whatever sodium-saturated food I ate yesterday onto the shower floor. After emptying my stomach, I reach my hand out and turn the shower faucet. Cold water pours down from the rain head above, soaking me in all of my clothes and washing my sickness down the drain. I curl into a ball beneath the spray. Wash me away, too, I silently plead. Ygritte. Robb. Dany. Theon. Mom. Ygritte. Robb. Dany. Theon. Mom.

* * * * *

**EIGHT MONTHS AGO**

I sat in my car for nearly an hour that day I decided to go see her. I had the torn off scrap of legal paper in my hands, reading the name over and over again: _Daenerys Targaryen._ There was the address of Lucille’s scribbled underneath. It took me weeks to decide to do anything with this information. I’d gone looking for my father, only to find out he died at age twenty – a car accident before I even left the womb. It wasn’t shocking news. I wasn’t even saddened by it, simply ready to accept the fact that I was officially an orphan and move on, but then the PI told me about her. 

“As far as I can tell, he only has two relatives left living, besides yourself of course,” the old man said. His name was Jeor Mormont, a crooked cop turned private investigator. His clothes were black, and his beard was grey. His office smelled like mildew and french fries. “A sister and her young daughter.” That was when he tore off the scrap of paper from a thick note pad and scribbled the name and address onto it. He handed it to me. “That’s your aunt, and that’s where she works, in case you want to connect with her.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I had told him, having no intention of seeking out this woman, but I pocketed the paper anyway. 

Pocketing it again, I left my car and went inside the retro diner. A bell dinged above the door when I pushed it open. Stevie Wonder was playing quietly over the speaker system. A sign stood just within the entrance: “Please seat yourself.”

I bypassed it and went up to the counter. There was a woman behind it, punching her fingers into the register. 

“Excuse me,” I said. 

She turned and greeted me with a customer service smile. “How can I help you, sir?” She had short, dark hair in tight curls and a thin, clear face. A good-looking girl really, but I paid no attention to that at the time. 

“Is Daenerys working today?” I asked. 

She appeared confused for a moment, before the light returned to her eyes. “Dany,” she says like it’s a statement. “Yeah, she’s right over there.” She pointed a slender finger to a girl who defied all of my expectations. She was meant to be my father’s sister. I imagined a woman of middle age, and someone who may actually resemble myself. This Dany person was not old. In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say she was younger than myself. She stood at a table of eight, moving around them to get everyone’s orders. Her skin was fair, but her hair even fairer – nearly white it was so blonde. She was petite with slight curves and full cheeks. There had to have been a mistake. This couldn’t be the person I was looking for. This girl was young and stunning, even in that ugly yellow-checkered dress that seemed to be the uniform. She was not the aunt of anyone. 

I turned back to the girl behind the counter. “That’s Daenerys Targaryen?” I asked her, convinced there had been a mistake. 

“Yeah,” she chirped, quite confidently. “I mean, she doesn’t like being called Daenerys, though.”

“Daenerys _Targaryen_?”

“Yeah.” She was annoyed now, side-eyeing me. 

I looked back to the girl – to Dany. She giggled at something a small boy at the table said, and her smile lit up her whole face in a way that made me suddenly too nervous to go through with this. I turned on my heel and walked right out the door, determined to never come back. 

It didn’t matter, I kept telling myself. She wasn’t anything to me. 

But I did go back, though it took me another few weeks to get up the courage. Every day I would spend my lunch break sitting in my car, parked across the street from the diner, watching the diner’s wall of windows just to catch glimpses of this girl. I felt like a weird-o. I felt like Theon, but I never intended to stalk her like this. Each day, I would tell myself that this was the day I would go up to her and ask her about her family, about a man named Rhaegar Targaryen.

‘I’m his son,’ I would tell her, but that never seemed right. This man wasn’t my father. He never even knew about me. Just some nameless, faceless sperm-donor who hooked up with my mom one drunken night after a Motley Crue concert in 1989, never to be heard from again.

‘I think we’re related,’ I would tell her, but that didn’t seem right either. I didn’t know this girl. She looked nothing like me. I already had a family in the Starks – Robb and his family – and most of the time, I wished I’d never come into his life. What would be the point of coming into someone else’s?

On a Saturday night, I drove past Lucille’s and caught a glimpse of her. Maybe it was the nighttime air, but I made the snap decision to pull into the diner’s parking lot. Before I could psych myself out of it, I climbed from my car, shoved my hands into my pockets, and started around the building and toward the front door. Halfway there, I was startled by the honking of a car horn in quick succession, like someone on the highway was trying to get someone’s attention. Turned out, the someone on the highway was Robb, and he was trying to get my attention. The window of his Tesla was rolled down, and he was grinning his white teeth at me. He shouted something, which I didn’t hear, and then made a sharp turn into the parking lot. 

I felt my stomach drop down to my feet. Robb was out of his car and sauntering over to me within seconds. 

“Hey, man!” he exclaimed, arms outstretched like he wanted to hug me, but we don’t do that. He dropped them to his sides as soon as he was stopped in front of me. He was in a casual suit, despite not having worked today. “What are you up to?” he asked. “Getting some grub?”

“No,” I answer quickly.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I already know you like shitty food. Breakfast for dinner, tonight? Come on, I’ll eat with you.” Robb slapped his palm upon my shoulder and pushed me toward the front door. 

I racked my brain for some excuse not to go inside, but I was too overwhelmed to speak. Everything was such a blur. The next thing I knew, I was sitting at a booth along the windowed wall, and Robb was sitting across from me. My eyes darted around the establishment, but among the many faces there on a Saturday evening, I did not spot Dany. Robb was talking to me about something – work, girls, maybe girls who work with us – but I couldn’t process a word of it. 

When a waitress came to our table, I flinched, worried for a moment that it would be Dany, but this girl looked like a teenager, and had a darker complexion. “Hello, gentlemen,” she greeted us. “Can I start y’all off with some drinks?”

Robb smiled up at the girl, but as he opened his mouth to speak, something behind me caught his attention and his voice faltered. Perplexed by his sudden loss of words, I twisted around. My body temperature must have rose at least ten degrees as soon as I saw her: Dany, wiping down the table two booths down from us. There was something ethereal about her, even in that God-awful dress. She shimmered like a star in the night’s sky. Her hair was like the tail of a white horse, pleated behind her head and tied at the nape of her neck to then cascade in waves down her back. I only tore my eyes from her when I heard Robb tell our waitress, “You wouldn’t mind if she helped us instead, would you?”

He slid a Benjamin into the young woman’s hand, and she glowed, looking at Robb like he was some prince or something. The whole thing made me ill even before I realized Robb was intending to bring Dany over here. 

The waitress made haste in going to Dany, telling her something quietly, and then flitting off behind the bar counter. Dany moved much slower, like she was floating. When she was standing before our table, I found I could no longer look at her. Robb had no such problem. He gazed up at her like she was a prized stallion at a livestock auction. 

“What can I get you?” she asked, less chipper than our previous waitress. 

“Dany? Is that what your nametag says?” Robb asked. 

“Yeah,” replied Dany passively. “You know what you want to drink?”

I kept my eyes on her hands. In one, she held a ticket pad at waist height. In the other, she held a blue pen. She tapped the back of the pen against the ticket pad. Her hands were small and delicate, fingers thin and nails short. 

“What do you recommend?” Robb asked. He did this everywhere we went. Every bar, every restaurant, every gas station he would find some girl and make a game out of her. 

“We’ve got coffee, tea, lemonade, sprite, coke. . .” She ran off the whole menu in quite a disinterested tone. It brought me a small bit of comfort that she wasn’t quick to fall for Robb’s charming smile. 

“Do you like working here?” Robb asked her before she could list off every flavor of milkshake they served. 

Hesitation in her voice, Dany replied, “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“My office is expanding, and I think a girl like you would do well in a corporate setting,” Robb told her, and I braced myself for his next line. It left his mouth like sour honey. “Get you out of that uniform.”

I sent a glare across the table, but Robb’s eyes were glued up at Dany. I dared not venture to look at her face, but I could feel her unease. 

“You know that tall building down the highway a couple miles? The tallest one, with the infinity fountain out front and the hedges all carved into wolves?” Robb asked with a sly half smile. 

“The Stark building?” Dany asked.

“That’s the one. I work there. I’m Robb Stark actually.” When Dany did not immediately swoon, Robb stretched his hand toward me and said, “And this is Jon, one of my employees.”

Against my better judgement, I looked up at Dany. Our eyes met. Hers were a warm blue that sparkled under yellow lights. Her expression was tired, though, and not in the mood for conversations with strangers. She turned back to Robb and said, “Wolves, huh? I always thought they were bears.”

Robb chortled happily, but I knew for a fact he wouldn’t have been so amused had the comment come from someone other than an attractive female. “I suppose they do sort of resemble bears,” Robb told her. “You have marvelous eyes, by the way.”

Before I could gag, I blurted out, “I’ll just have a water, please.”

“And you?” Dany asked Robb, more than happy to get back to taking our orders. 

“I’ll take a coffee, sweetheart. Thank you,” he replied. 

Dany did not even take the time to write the order on the ticket before leaving our table. I wanted to die watching Robb follow her with his eyes as she walked away. 

“Stop,” I meekly demanded, leaning forward and giving Robb an earnest look. “I hate it when you do that. Just, stop.”

“Relax, Jon,” Robb said with a laugh. “You’re too uptight. I’m just being nice to the girl.”

“She’s not interested.”

“Oh, girls always act like they aren’t interested at first. It’s part of the game.” He took a menu from where a small stack of them were leaned against the windowsill. He opened it up and read from it, while he changed the subject. “Tell me about this business with the labor commissioner,” he said, and as much as I did not want to talk about work on my time off, it was better than talking about how my aunt was supposedly playing hard to get with my cousin. 

I endured more of Robb’s cringe-worthy one-liners when Dany brought us our drinks; I never knew one could make so many sexual jokes about a diner menu. When Dany returned with our food, Robb said, “That was quick. You must have missed me.”

My eyes hurt from the strength it took not to roll them. 

“When do you get off on Saturdays?” Robb asked. 

“Late,” replied Dany curtly.

“Well, I’m always up late.”

“I’m not. Is there anything else I can get you?”

“What are you offering?”

Dany never answered the question, instead turning on her heel and leaving us to get to her other tables. Robb immediately threw me a wide-eyed look of amusement, laughing like it was all a big joke. “Wow, I think she really likes me,” he said. 

I told him I had to use the restroom, but instead I went to the counter where Dany stood taking change out of the register. 

“Hey,” I began in a low voice, leaning my elbows on the counter. “I’m sorry about my boss. He’s a menace to society, truly.”

Her eyes lifted to meet mine. Though her expression was still stony from the encounter she had just endured with Robb, I felt a softness in her gaze. Strength and vulnerability all wrapped up in one package. Maybe we did have something in common. 

“I’m a waitress in downtown Los Angeles,” she replied. “I’m used to it. And you apologizing for him doesn’t change anything. He’s still who he is, and you’re still who you are.”

It did change something, though. It mattered to me that she knew I wasn’t like Robb. I needed her to see some sign that I was a decent person. “I’m sorry, still,” I told her. 

“Is that guy really Robb Stark?” Dany asked curiously before I could turn away. 

“The one and only.”

“Well, he’s an asshole.”

When Robb finally decided enough was enough and that he would leave without attaining Dany’s phone number, he set a crisp hundred-dollar bill on the table and stood. Robb never waited for change. He would waste all the money in the world not to have to wait a minute for anything. He didn’t see me slip an extra hundred there. I would feel dirty about that afterward – like I was some deadbeat father trying to atone for a lifelong absence. But in the moment, it felt only right to share a small piece of what I had with her, especially since I had just decided I wouldn’t be coming to the diner anymore. Not to talk to her, or to sit in my car across the street and watch her. I couldn’t be around her without my heart feeling like the ball tied to the center of a wood paddle, banging against my chest with the might of a ping pong legend, and I saw no practical point in revealing to her that the man who knocked my mother up twenty-nine years ago was her brother, who died before either of us ever drew breath in this world. 

I decided never to see her again, and my parting gift to the only aunt I would ever have was one-hundred dollars, not even enough to by a Blu-ray box set of the original Star Wars trilogy. 

But I never could stop thinking about her. In the weeks after speaking to her at the diner, I would think about her almost constantly. At work, I would space out for an hour at a time, staring blankly at my computer screen, wondering about Dany’s life. Had she grown up near me? Had we passed each other in the street without any idea who the other was? Did she grow up well-off, or poor? Did she get into trouble as a child, or was she a sweet girl who lived in her head? Did she know her brother had a son? Did she ever wonder about me? Had she ever looked for me?

Not even Ygritte could keep my mind from straying to Dany, not even when we were in bed together. I had never really considered before that I might have a “type” in terms of women, but there was something about Dany that overwhelmed me beyond the idea of her being somehow related to me. It made me feel sick that my mind would even conjure Dany in such a fashion – that I would fantasize about her, and long for her in ways that crossed so many lines. 

I had to stay away from her. There was no other option for me. I wondered if maybe one day, after all the excitement of finding this brand new person wore off, I could approach her again and tell her what the private investigator had discovered. Maybe after my body and mind could reconcile the physical attraction I had toward her with the biological relationship I share with her, I could try to come into her life the way I always should have been in her life. In another reality, we would have grown up together, been friends and allies as well as family, shared secrets and had petty arguments we would forget about in a matter of days. It was all so juvenile. I was nearing thirty and, as an adult, family is much more about who you choose than who you’re related to. I chose Ygritte, and I hoped that in time, I would remember that and forget this silly obsession I had with Dany, a woman I didn’t even know. 

But then the party came. It was a ridiculous affair. Every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Robb would invite Stark Inc. executives, investors, and top tier clients out to a lodge in the hills – a private, secluded clubhouse Robb would rent out for the night. I planned to arrive late and leave early. As soon as I left my car with the valet, I felt this churning in my gut like I should just turn right back around and leave. I was in clothes I would typically wear to court, but without a tie at least. I put extra gel in my hair to keep it back and in place. Robb would want me to look impressive for the guests, even though this entire thing was for rich men to get wasted and make fools out of themselves. 

Before I reached the steps that lead into the clubhouse, I felt the weight of a hand upon my shoulder. When I turned, I was met with the piercing eyes of Theon Greyjoy, his mouth twisted in a smirk. He wore not a stitch of clothing that was not black, but the paleness of his face glowed under the porch lights. 

“Be careful,” he told me. “There’s a wolf on the loose out here.”

I turned my head, focusing my eyes on the darkness around us. Up here, there were no street lamps to keep the area in a permanent glow, and the tall trees blocked out the city lights from down below. I could just barely make out the texture of the trees and where they began. “There’s no wolves up here,” I told Theon with a hint of annoyance. It was impossible not to speak to him without some annoyance in my tone. His very existence annoyed me. “Must’ve been a coyote.”

“A white coyote? Looked like a wolf to me.”

I rolled my eyes, shrugged his hand off my shoulder and ascended the steps. 

“If you see it, come find me!” Theon exclaimed, staying on the ground. 

Inside, I see mostly familiar faces, something that brings me much dread. Dozens of mostly older white men in sport jackets and multi-thousand-dollar leather shoes all stood around with tumblers in their hands, sipping straight scotch between bouts of laughter that turned their plump faces red. I had no desire to hear the jokes which provoked them. In a corner of the clubhouse, a man in black tails played soft jazz on a grand piano. Beside him, another man in the same formal dress blew on a trumpet. The waitstaff was a younger crowd and all wearing identical burgundy dress shirts and black slacks. They held out trays of little quiches and caviar for the guests to snack on. 

There were not many women there, which was not unusual. Most of our high-ranking employees were male, as were most of our investors and high-profile clientele. Some of the men brought along their girlfriends, mistresses, and women who charge by the hour. 

I spotted Robb through the pane glass doors that lead out to the back deck. He was puffing on a cigar with our COO and a fat cat client. He didn’t see me, though, so I turned the other way and headed for the bar. I promised Ygritte I wouldn’t drink very much. She knew I wasn’t the type to get into trouble while drunk; in fact, alcohol tended to make me more melancholic than exuberant, but I was planning on driving myself home, and the roads down the hill were dark and winding. I ordered a double whiskey, because I hate whiskey, so the drink would last me a while. 

As soon as I allowed my eyes to roam the room again, my heart dropped and I nearly choked on the miniscule sip of whiskey I just took in. Standing against the wall adjacent to the bar, was Dany. Black silk hugged her body down to her knees, black lace gloves stretched up past her elbows, and in her delicate hand was a martini glass. Her hair fell loosely about her shoulders in thick waves of ivory and with a small pin of silver jewels keeping the front portion pushed back from her face. Her lips were painted a soft pink, parted just slightly as her eyes stared off at nothing. 

My shock and confusion at finding her here, at Robb’s ridiculous pre-holiday party, carried me from the bar stool to where she stood. She did not acknowledge me until I spoke. 

“Hi.”

Her head turned, eye flickering with realization. 

“From the diner,” I told her, helping her to remember my face. 

“Oh. Hi.” The corners of her mouth lifted in a small smile. The fact that anyone would have cause to smile at this party perplexed me, but I was glad I could provoke one from Dany. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, trying not to sound indignant, though the thought of her being at this party stirred an irrational anger in me. I wanted to scoop her up and carry her out of this place, to drive her home and make sure she got into her door safely. This wasn’t a good place for anyone, especially not for Dany. 

“Your boss invited me,” she replied bashfully. “He was very persistent.” 

I shook my head. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Her eyes squinted, not so much offended but curious. “I can take care of myself.”

“I thought you said Robb was an asshole.”

“He is,” she said with a small chuckle. “But I’ve been dealing with people like him all my life. Well, none quite so well off.”

It was my turn to squint, wondering why Dany would be so willing to deal with Robb even though she didn’t like him. “He’s not a good guy,” I warned. “This isn’t a good place. Even I feel uncomfortable here, and I know most of these people.”

She looked me in the eyes with an earnest, resolved look, and said, “I appreciate your concern, but I’m fine.” I knew that was the end of the discussion. My concern for her was appreciated, but unwelcomed. I wanted to tell her she could trust me. But, how do you tell someone who thinks you’re a complete stranger that you care about them and want to keep them safe? You can’t. So I attempted to appeal to her conscience.

“You know he’s married, right?” I asked, and immediately realized it was the complete wrong thing to say. 

The look in her eyes suggested that perhaps she didn’t know, or maybe she did know but was ashamed at having paid that fact little mind. I had made her feel guilty when I had no right to place judgement on anyone considering how much effort I had to put into not letting my gaze slip down to my aunt’s cleavage. After what felt like a lifetime, Dany said, “I don’t know why me being here is any of your business, and I’d really rather not be interrogated.”

And that was that. There was nothing more to say but a defeated apology as I walked away. My next and last move was to try and talk to the only other person who could stop whatever was going to happen between her and Robb: Robb himself.

On the back deck, I interrupted Robb’s tale about how he tackled a mugger outside a Wendy’s when he was in college – a lie – by pulling him aside without care of being disrespectful. 

“The fuck?” Robb spouted. 

“Why is Dany here?” I asked him flat out. 

“Who?”

“Dany. The girl from the diner.”

A wide smile lit up his face, a sight that sickened me. “She showed up, then?”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Have you been seeing her this whole time?”

“Define _seeing._ ”

Lowering my voice, I asked, “Have you been sleeping with her?”

Robb chuckled and shook his head. “We’ve been having this little cat and mouse thing going on for a little while. She’s feisty. Knows her worth and isn’t willing to put out for anything less. Frankly, though, I think she overvalues herself a little bit, but that’s part of the game. She knows I’m not going to stop until I get what I want, and that drives the price up.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, face twisting with confusion. 

“Capitalism, Jon,” Robb replied, slapping his hand on my shoulder. “I’m talking about good old capitalism.” 

Squinting my eyes into his, I asked, “Are you high?”

“Yes,” Robb chortled. 

I rolled my eyes, wondering if there was even a point in trying to speak to him about anything remotely serious. “You know she thinks you’re an asshole, right?” I tried. “She’s not into you.”

“News flash, Jon. Girls like assholes,” he replied. “I mean, you didn’t even bother inviting your girlfriend here tonight, and she still likes you.”

I twitched with anger at the insinuation that we were the same sort of man, but I tempered myself, taking in a slow breath and forcing myself to think about this rationally. “Look, I can’t explain why, but I really don’t want her here. Can you please tell her to leave?”

Robb laughed like I had told a funny joke. “Tell her to leave? Now who’s the asshole?”

“Robb—”

“Tell me why,” he insisted, wearing an amused smile. He was playing with me now, a game I had foolishly started. 

“Come on—”

“Just tell me, Jon. It’s called reciprocity. You tell me what you don’t want to tell me, and I do you a favor.”

He wanted me to trust him, but I never have, and so I fundamentally could not tell him the truth. And yet, in my effort to lie, I ended up telling him a different truth. “I like her,” I confessed. “I was going to the diner that night because I saw her, and I wanted to talk to her, but then you showed up and—"

“I cock blocked you,” Robb finished, eyes widening with realization. The phrase made me inwardly cringe, but the look of genuine sympathy upon Robb’s face gave me hope that he would now follow through with his part of the deal. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath before taking a swig of his scotch. “You’ve got a thing for her. Of course you don’t want me getting with her. Jeez, Jon.” He set his glass down and turned toward the nearest door to the inside. 

“So, you’ll tell her to leave?” I ask him. 

He turned back, looking defeated, as if I’ve truly forced his hand. “Reciprocity, Jon. You told me your secret, and now I’m going to do you a favor.”

“Really?” I ask, almost believing him. 

Robb sauntered back to me and rested his hand on my arm, almost brotherly. “You’ve always thought you were a better man than me, Jon.”

I squint. “That’s not—”

“It’s okay,” he quickly said. “Truth is, you are a better man. I cheat on my wife. I cheat at poker. I cheat on my taxes. Fuck, I even cheat at Chinese Checkers with my son – I mean, how sick is that? But you, Jon – you’ve never been that guy. And my favor to you, will be to make sure you don’t turn into that guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Ygritte!” he exclaimed. “You love her. I know you do. And what sort of cousin would I be if I let you risk that for some diner girl.”

“Robb—”

He interrupted me with a hardy laugh and a squeeze of my arm. “Trust me, Jon. You are not going to want anything to do with this girl after I’m done with her. And after the wedding, you can tell Ygritte I said _you’re welcome._ ” He turned back to the door and pulled it open, but then swung around to add, “By the way, you should watch out. There’s a wolf running around the property. I saw it just an hour ago. Big fucking thing. I hit it with one of those crystal ashtrays, but I guess it didn’t get the hint because Theon says it’s still hanging around.”

I hardly registered those final words. I was in a state of horror so overwhelming that I found I couldn’t move a muscle. My feet were frozen in place, my body rigid, and my eyes forced to watch Robb disappear into the clubhouse. I could no longer hear the jazz music. It was just my heartbeat thumping like a jackhammer in my ears. My body temperature rose so quickly I thought my skin would start to bubble. I tried to think of something to do, but my brain was short circuiting. My mind was flooded with images of Robb touching Dany. He couldn’t. I couldn’t either, but I could accept that. I could live my whole life without ever knowing Dany’s touch, but I could not live knowing that Robb had. 

I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath until the sudden bang of a gunshot ripped me from my thoughts. I sucked in a sharp breath and turned toward the sound. The other men on the deck looked startled as well, but I was the only one curious enough to go looking for its source. 

Using my phone as a flashlight, I moved around the clubhouse, to the side where there were no other lights around. Soon, a figure emerged into the light my phone casted. 

“Theon,” I said, out of breath. “What’s going on?”

The gun was still in his hand, a silver pistol. My first thought was that he had killed someone. I always knew Theon was capable of killing, but I had not considered it as a reality until that moment. 

Another strange smile grew upon his face. He replied, “Found that wolf. No need to worry anymore.”

“What?” I ask incredulously. 

Moving past me, he said, “I’m going to tell Robb. He said if I caught it, I could keep it, and—” He snickered—“it’s caught.”

“Where?”

He pointed straight out, toward the trees in the direction in which he came. Once he was around the corner of the building and out of sight, I ran with my phone-flashlight in that very direction he had pointed to. For as little trust as I had in Robb, I trusted Theon even less. For all I knew, this “wolf” could have been a human. 

Once I’d crossed into the tree line, I slowed as not to smack myself on a low hanging branch. I trudged through the wooded area quickly, though, moving the beam of light my phone emitted until I saw something large upon the ground some yards from me. The whiteness of it stood out from the dark greens and browns of the trees and shrubs. I approached cautiously, for it was definitely an animal, and a large one at that. It was spread out on its side. Dense white fur covered its entire body, but in the center of its body was a splotch of red that saturated the fur around it. There was so much blood, I was sure the thing was dead, but then I moved the light up its body and to its head. Big eyes looked directly at me, also red, and blinking slowly. 

Without fear of consequence, I dropped to my knees. This wasn’t a wolf, but a dog. A type of shepherd maybe, but the largest one I’ve ever seen. Focusing now, I could hear the labored wind leave the dog’s mouth. I laid my palm upon his side, feeling the wet blood, feeling the rise and fall of its chest, feeling its heartbeat. I felt more calm in that moment than I had in a month, because in this instance, I actually did know what to do. 

I put my phone in my pocket and, in the near-pitch darkness, I shifted my arms underneath the dog’s massive body and scooped him up. He had to have weighed nearly two-hundred pounds. 

“Holy shit,” was all the young valet said when I came up to him, a bloodied dog in my arms. 

“Get my fucking car,” I demanded, and he hastily snatched my car keys from his board and ran with them to the lot just down the hill. 

If any of the partygoers noticed me, I did not notice them. I was entranced by my new mission. I could do this, I told myself. I could save this dog. 

I drove straight to the first twenty-four-hour Animal Emergency Hospital I could find. At that hour, there was no one in the waiting room. A vet tech came out of the back room, took one look at the dog, and immediately ushered me back. I rested him down on a metal table that was surrounded by all sorts of medical instruments. 

“What happened?” asked a woman in blue scrubs who then stood beside the vet tech as she snapped gloves onto her hands. 

“He was shot,” I told her before considering the implications. “I was up in the hills and heard a shot. When I went looking through the woods, I found him. He’s not mine. I don’t know who he belongs to.”

Neither the veterinarian or the vet tech questioned me further, more keen to get to work, which I was grateful for. I was told to have a seat in the waiting room, and they would let me know when they had a status update. 

Sitting under the florescent lights for so long, I thought to call Ygritte, but I didn’t want her to freak out. I also, selfishly, just wanted to be alone. At least alone I wouldn’t have to pretend not to be obsessing over that which I could not control – whatever Robb was doing with Dany. 

It was more than an hour before I could go back and see the dog. He was still on that metal table. He had a tube down his throat and bandages all around him. He was lying still, but his eyes were blinking at me, just like in the woods. 

“He’s sedated, but conscious now,” the vet said. “He’ll need to stay here for a recovery period, and if we can’t find an owner, he’ll go to a shelter once he’s healed.”

I rest my palm on the side of his head, brushing back his fur. “So, he’ll be okay?”

“The bullet didn’t hit any major organs. He should make a full recovery, but it will take a while for him to heal.”

“Good.” I let out a breath. “Could I leave you my number?”

“Sure. Someone will give you a call with an update.”

“If he doesn’t have an owner,” I begin, eyes locked with the dog’s, “will you call me and tell me which shelter he’s at?”

“Of course,” replied the vet. “Would you like to give him a name? Something we can call him until we find out his real name, if he has a real name?”

I swallowed, eyes still connected with the dog’s. It was like I was him and he was me. I told the vet to give him the name Ghost.

Back at my car, I peeled off my bloodied blazer and shirt and put on a grey zip-up hoodie that was lying in the backseat. I then drove back up to the clubhouse with foreboding sickness in my gut. I should have just told Dany who I was. If she had known we were family, maybe she would have trusted me, maybe she would have believed me, and maybe she would have let me take her home. But I was a coward. I was afraid of her wanting a familial relationship with me when I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was, or how soft her skin would feel under my fingertips. 

When I got to the clubhouse, most of the cars were gone from the parking lot and the valet was no longer at his post. I left my car in front of the building, jumped up the steps and hurried inside. Where there once was a lively party with music and catering, there was only a few forlorn looking men in suits sitting in armchairs. The musicians were gone. The waitstaff were gone. I went to the bar, but there was no one in front of or in back of it. The double doors that lead to a small parlor were ajar and I heard voices from it. 

The first thing I saw when I came into the parlor was blood, saturating the pale rug that stretched across the room. The second thing I saw was Robb, jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His hair was mussed, and his chest heaved like he’d been pacing. Theon was beside him, looking exactly as he always did. Neither spoke a word to me. I looked all around the room but saw Dany nowhere. 

“What happened?” I asked. 

“It doesn’t concern you,” Theon replied. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Robb spat back at his pet. “It’s fine, Jon. We’ve got it covered. We just have to. . . clean this shit up.”

“What the _fuck_ happened?” I asked again, stepping over the blood stains to stand just before Robb, smelling the alcohol and sweat coming off his skin. “Where is she?”

“Who?” he asked, wild eyed with whatever else he was on besides scotch. 

“Dany!”

Robb’s eyes darted around the room. “Fuck. She was here. . . at some point. I don’t know. She must have left.”

“Left? Who the fuck’s blood is that?”

Robb shook his head down at the big red stain, “I had a disagreement with one of the accountants. It got a little out of hand.” His eyes darted sideways, to Theon. “But he’s going to be fine. He’s probably at the hospital already. He’ll be fine.”

“He’ll be fine?” I asked incredulously. 

“I only shot him in the leg,” said Theon blandly. 

I shot him a glare. “You also shot a fucking dog thinking it was a wolf.” I pressed my palms to my eyes and muttered, “I’ve got to get out of here.” I staggered out the parlor doors. Robb was quick to catch me. 

“Jon,” he said, low and earnest. “That girl, Dany, she was here for the whole thing.”

I winced at the thought. “So what?”

“So”—he lowered his voice even more— “we were arguing about. . . things I can’t tell you. . . for legal reasons.”

I blinked at him slowly, having a very difficult time wrapping my head around this entire night. “What are you saying to me?”

“The non-disclosure agreement you wrote up. . . does that cover this sort of thing?”

My eyes widened with astonishment. “You’re asking me if the NDA you give to the women you sleep with also covers scenarios in which they witness you conspiring to commit crimes and then actually committing an crime?”

“Hey, I didn’t shoot that prick. That was Theon.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter!” I turned around, pinching the bridge of my nose as if that simple act could wipe that entire night from existence. “Oh my God. I have to get out of here,” I muttered. 

“Jon!” Robb called after me as I walked on rubber legs back to my car. “You need to fix this!”

I drove straight home, but sat in my car in the dimly lit, underground parking garage beneath my condo complex for twenty minutes, just staring at the concrete wall I parked perpendicular to. Eventually, I popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the business card of a man who had approached me not long ago with questions about Robb and the company. Edd Tollett, it said. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angeles Branch. It was past midnight, but I dialed the number anyway. A very tired sounding man answered, and I proceeded to tell him that I would willing to cooperate with their investigation into Stark Incorporated. 

“What do I do now?” I asked near the end of the conversation. “I can’t go back there.”

“You have to,” Edd explained. “You need to gather as much evidence as you can to support all of these claims you’re making. Go back to work on Monday. Act like everything is normal. Go about your day as you normally would. When you’ve collected all that you can, bring it to me, and we’ll discuss further actions.”

I heaved a heavy sigh, then gave a curt, “Okay,” and hung up. 

The next day was Sunday, but I was called into the office anyway, just after dawn. My head was still spinning. I hadn’t slept a wink, yet I felt like I was half-conscious as I drove to work in casual clothes. I went straight up to my office, and Robb was waiting for me when I got there, sitting in my chair, behind my desk. He always did that, and I always kept my mouth shut and sat instead in one of the upholstered chairs across from him. What annoyed me the most, though, was how perfect Robb looked. Showered and in ironed clothes like it was just another day, not a bag under his eyes or a waver to his countenance. 

“We need to do something about this diner girl situation,” was the first thing he said to me. 

“What situation?”

“I need you to draft a new NDA that covers everything from that party, I need you to take it to her, and I need you to make her sign it.”

Breathing out an exasperated laugh, I told him, “If she is aware of crimes being committed, or crimes you intend to commit, it’s going to invalidate the NDA.”

A darkness flashed through Robb’s eyes. He leaned forward and jutted his index finger toward me to say, “Then you’ll just have to convince her that the NDA cannot be invalidated. Make her realize that if she talks to anyone about anything she saw or heard at that party, we will destroy her.”

“I’m not doing that.”

Robb let out a sigh and leaned back in the leather desk chair. “I know you like her, though I honestly don’t see why. I mean, she’s cute, but. . . Anyway, Jon, me having you do this is me trying to do you a favor—”

I scoffed. Another “favor.”

“—I could just have Theon do it and _know_ that it’s getting done, but I didn’t think you’d want me sending Theon, so I’m asking you.”

I swallowed and rung my hands in my lap, trying not to grow angry at the idea of Theon going anywhere near Dany. Eventually, I said, “Fine, but I’m going to need my computer.”

Robb smiled one of those winning smirks and stood. He stopped beside me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about last night, Jon. I was fucked up.”

I refused to look up at him and give him the satisfaction like I heard him. It wasn’t a real apology anyway. Robb had never really apologized for anything in his life. 

It took me a few hours to write up a document that would sound threatening enough to make sure Dany never revealed whatever it was she witnessed and heard at that party. It was for the best, anyway. At least, that was what I told myself. If this contract could deter her from speaking out, it would only serve to keep her safe. I couldn’t have Theon going anywhere near Dany, and I knew Robb wouldn’t hesitate if it seemed like Dany’s silence couldn’t be counted on. 

I went straight to the diner, already knowing Dany’s Sunday hours. Lucille’s was busy with the after-church brunch crowd, but the ugly uniforms made it easy to pick out the waitresses among the many patrons. I soon spotted Dany, tending to the tables at the far end of the dining hall. I felt rushed, wanting to get this whole mess over and done with so I could finally move on with my life and maybe even forget Dany ever existed. As she was heading to the register to put in her tables’ orders, I intercepted her.

“Dany,” I said. 

She halted, and her eyes widened. Before she could speak, I said, “Can I talk to you? It’s important.”

“I’m working,” she stated. 

“Do you have a break coming up? I can wait.”

Her eyes rolled, but she looked much more nervous than annoyed. I hated that I made her nervous but told myself it was just because of Robb. If she knew me, she would know not to be afraid. 

I waited for her in front of the restaurant, by the newspaper dispensers, for upwards of ten minutes before Dany came out. It was just under seventy degrees that day, chilly for Los Angeles. Dany had put a white, wool cardigan over her yellow dress and her hands were dug into its pockets. She looked tired, eyes glassy and face pale. I wondered if she was looking at me, thinking I seemed tired as well. 

“I need you to sign this,” I said, pulling the rolled-up contract out of my back pocket. “You should read it first.”

She took the document and squinted her eyes down at the first page. “I already signed one of these.”

“This one is more. . . comprehensive,” I replied. 

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“What does it say?”

“You should read it.”

Her gaze lifted. “I want you to tell me.”

As soon as our eyes met, I averted mine, staring instead at the smooth flesh of her neck. “I’m Robb’s attorney. You shouldn’t trust me to tell you what it says. Normally, I would advise you to have your own attorney look at it—”

“I don’t have an attorney,” she quietly interjected.

“—but this is time sensitive. I really need you to sign it today.”

“Just tell me what it says,” she insisted. “I can’t spend an hour out here reading this. What is it? 20 pages?”

“Fourteen,” I replied, then cleared my throat, forcing my eyes to meet hers. “It says that everything you heard or witnessed while in the presence of Robb Stark, or any other guest of that party last night is confidential, and if you speak about any of it with anyone, we will sue you for libel, and for damages. Even if you win the case, we would take everything from you in the process. We’ve done it before.”

“It’s really that serious, huh? The things they were talking about last night? So serious that you had to come here on a Sunday to try and scare me?” She didn’t look scared, which I supposed was both a good and bad thing, but she did seem to understand.

“I really need you to sign it,” I said, nearly begging. “And I really, really need you to never speak about what happened at that party. It’s for your own safety.”

She let out a sigh, then handed me back the contract. “I want more money before I sign it.”

Confused, I ask, “More money?”

“On top of the ten-grand, I want fifty more.”

“Robb gave you ten thousand dollars?”

Dany looked away, unwilling to give me any clues. “Robb’s one of the richest guys in California, isn’t he? Fifty-grand’s got to be chump change to him, right?”

Yes. But that didn’t mean he would readily throw it at ‘some diner girl’ trying to extort him. I had a terrible feeling about all of this, but maybe in light of the circumstance, Robb would be willing to do anything to just sweep this whole thing under the rug. I rolled the contract up and slid it back into my pocket. 

As I started walking back to my car, Dany stopped me. 

“Hey,” she said, and I turned. She was looking me in the eye now, and it was a new sort of look – all vulnerability and no strength. “I’m not a whore, you know. I don’t. . . I just. . . He offered, and I knew it was a bad idea, but I really needed the money. I have a daughter, and it’s just us. I have no other family. I can’t afford the property taxes on our house, and the city wants to foreclose on us. The transmission in my car is shot, and the mechanic says it’s a lost cause. This job is the only one I can get with a GED and it barely pays minimum wage. We don’t even have health insurance. I’ll sign anything, but I need the money.”

When I told Robb about Dany wanting the extra fifty, he wasn’t happy. He extended his hand and demanded the contract from me. He wore that look of disappointment that he stole from his father. “You’re too nice, Jon,” he said, snatching the contract from my hand. “I’ll handle it.”

“Robb—”

“I’m sure you have other things you need to take care of, right? Like that labor commissioner issue?”

“Don’t send Theon,” I demanded. 

He shot me a warning look, a look to remind me of my place. We might be cousins by blood, but he’s the Stark and I’m the Snow. He’s the boss and I’m the employee. “Get the fuck out of my office,” he said, and I did. I left his office and waited until he left himself before slipping back in. Robb may have been the boss, but I knew all of his passwords, and exactly where to look to find all of the documents he tried unsuccessfully to keep from me. 

The amount of shit I had already known about but ignored was already unethical and could have cost me my license to practice law, or even sent me to prison. But all the shit I didn’t know about until I looked through Robb’s computer? It stopped my heart. Literally. 

I loaded everything that I could onto an external hard drive before I felt a sharp pain in the center of my chest. I unplugged the hard drive, slid it into my coat pocket, and made it about three yards from of Robb’s office before I collapsed onto the floor. 

The next several hours were a blur. I barely even registered my own existence in reality until late that night, lying horizontal under florescent lights with the incessant beeping of medical machines beside me. Someone squeezed my hand. I turned my head and blinked heavily to focus my eyes, and I saw Ygritte. Her other hand rested upon my cheek. 

“Jon?” a man’s voice asked from the other side of me. I turned toward it and saw an older man in a long white coat. “Did you hear what I said?”

My throat made a noise that was something like, “Huh?”

“I said you’re going to be fine. The heart attack was small. We have you on some medication to keep your rate steady, and some ibuprofen to calm you and keep the pain down. We’re going to keep you here overnight for observation. Your girlfriend is going to stay with you, alright?”

“Heart attack?” I said, mouth dry and with a pressure behind my eyes that made processing such news almost impossible. 

“Don’t worry,” Ygritte said softly, close to my ear as if it were a secret. 

I must have fallen asleep right then, though, because the next time I blinked, the doctor was gone, and the lights were almost completely out. Ygritte was in a chair beside me, looking at her phone, until she realized I was awake, and she quickly put it down and scooted up closer to me. 

“Hey,” she said gently, sliding her hand back into mine. I could barely feel it. “Are you okay?”

I swallowed what little saliva there was in my mouth. “I think I need to get away,” I told her. 

She smiled sadly. “Yeah. I think you do, too. Get away from the city, away from the office, away from Robb. There’s too much stress here. You need to take care of yourself.”

“I think I need to get away for good.”

“Don’t go without me,” she said, squeezing my hand. She lowered her cheek to rest upon my shoulder, and I rested mine atop her head. 

The next time I blinked, it was daytime, and I was alone in the room with all the beeping. Consciousness came easier, and I suddenly remembered all the reasons why I ended up in the hospital in the first place. A nurse came rushing in shortly after I pulled off my heart rate monitor. I told her I was ready to be discharged. Ygritte came in as I was changing out of the hospital gown and into the clothes I had on when I arrived. 

“What are you doing?” she asked me, voice dripping with concern and confusion. “Get back in bed, Jon. The doctor hasn’t even been around yet to check on you.”

“I’ve got to get to the office,” I said, tugging my jeans up my legs. Thankfully, the external hard drive full of incredibly incriminating evidence of every sort of fraud you can think of was still in my pocket.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “The office? You told me just last night that you were going to take time off. That place is the reason why you had a heart attack.”

“It was a small one,” I quietly argued. 

“You’re twenty-nine, Jon. Twenty-nine-year-olds shouldn’t be having heart attacks, small or otherwise.”

I buttoned up my shirt and ignored her disapproving frown. “My car is at the office, alright? I just have to get my car. I’ll tell Robb I’m going to take a leave of absence, I’ll get my car, and go home, alright?”

Ygritte remained displeased. It was because she didn’t believe me, and why should she? I was lying. All this time I wanted Dany to know she could trust me, but I wasn’t trustworthy at all. Maybe I wasn’t a cheater the way Robb was, but I was still a liar. She marched up to me and took my face in her hands, forcing my gaze to her. “He’s killing you, Jon. Don’t you see that? If you keep going on like this, you’re going to die.”

She was right. She was always right, but I had to go. I had to.

As I walked through the office, I could tell my stay in the hospital had gotten around. There were lots of whispers and occasionally, someone would approach me and ask me how I was feeling. My mind was focused, though, and I ignored the world around me until I got to Robb’s office. Theon was also there. The two of them had been having a meeting. 

“Jon,” Robb said, standing. “How are you?”

“What’s happening with the Dany situation?” I immediately ask. 

His expression turns perplexed. “You don’t have to worry about that. That is handled.” 

I look from Robb, to Theon where he sits casually in a straight back chair, then back to Robb. “What do you mean, it’s handled?”

“Why don’t you go home and get some rest,” Robb suggested. 

“What do you mean, it’s handled?” I repeated, louder this time. 

With a roll of his eyes, Robb pulled open his top desk drawer, pulled the contract from it, and slid it across his desk toward me. “I mean, it’s handled. Theon took care of it this morning.”

I grabbed the contract and flipped to the last page. At the bottom, was Dany’s signature scribbled onto the line beside today’s date. I looked at Theon and asked, “How?”

The corner of his mouth raised in a smirk.

Robb answered for him with a small chuckle, “Well, he didn’t give her any money, that’s for sure.”

I turned my body toward Theon, only interested in what he had to say. “How?” I asked again.

Head lifting, he locked his ice-blue eyes with mine as he reached into the breast pocket of his sport jacket and pulled out some sort of pendant necklace with a long silver chain. He dangled it between us like it was a hypnotist’s watch and said, “She kept this on her bedside table, hanging from the shade of a lamp. It wasn’t hard to get. Their patio door has a faulty lock, and her and that little daughter of hers are heavy sleepers.”

Scowling, I tore the necklace from Theon’s grasp and examined it. There was a seam running along it’s circumference. It was a locket. I pried it open, read the engraving, and looked at the picture beside it. A little girl, barely a year old from the looks of her – dark hair in curly wisps and dark eyes, big and glimmering under the professional lighting. _Love, Rhae_ the engraving read. Rhae. . . So much like Rhaegar, the name of the father I never met – her uncle. This little girl was my cousin by blood, and some deranged freak had broken into her home while she slept. 

Voice like an evil villain from an old Batman movie, Theon added, “All I had to do was show it to her, and she was more than amenable to doing whatever I asked of her.”

Like a cat swatting a fly, I reach the hand not holding the locket and snatch Theon’s throat, squeezing until his face turned red, but all he did was smirk. “Did you fucking touch her?” I ask with a tight jaw.

Before Robb could force me from Theon, I swore I saw him wink. 

I pushed Robb off me and turned to glare daggers into his cold eyes. “You told him to do this?”

“I told him to get it done. He got it done.”

I shut my eyes, took in a slow breath, then exhaled even slower. Calmly, I opened my eyes and said to Robb, “I quit.” I held up the locket and added, “And, I’m taking this.”

“Jon—” Robb tried, but I had already turned around and was never planning on turning back. 

I went home first and made a copy of all the documents I had stolen from Robb’s computer. My bathroom had been remodeled a few months ago and I still had extra tile stacked up in the closet. It seemed like the perfect hiding place at the time. I went to my bank next. In my safety deposit box, I stored the original hard drive, but stopped before sliding the box back into the vault. For an emergency, I had placed twenty-grand in cash in the box. I took the banded wad out and slid it into my jacket pocket. I went around to the bank teller and requested a withdrawal of thirty-grand, in cash, from my savings account. 

The last stop I made was to Lucille’s, just in time for Dany to get off work. I waited for her outside the restaurant, not wanting to bother her until she was off the clock. As soon as she saw me, her face washed over with fear.

“Stay away from me,” she said, averting her eyes and walking straight past me. 

I caught her by the arm, too flustered to even realize I was touching her. “I’m sorry,” I said in desperation. “I didn’t know my colleague was going to do that. I just want to give this back to you.” I handed her the locket. She didn’t take it at first, instead looking me up and down like I was infected with some sort of contagious disease. 

“I don’t want it,” she eventually said. “Throw it in the fucking trash. It’s just another reminder how terrible everyone is, and how I’ve got to do everything on my own.”

She tugged her arm from my grasp and quickly walked down the sidewalk, but before she could get far, I called out to her. “Let me give this to you, at least!” When she turned, I extended to her what was in my other hand: a manila, legal-sized envelope packed thick with fifty thousand dollars. “It’s your money,” I told her, and only then did she walk back to me, cautiously. 

“I already signed your NDA.”

It wasn’t _my_ NDA, I wanted to say, but I refrained. “Robb wanted you to have this anyway. He was angry at first, but after what my colleague did, he felt he owed you. Like you said, it’s chump change, really.”

She hesitated, but soon reached out and grabbed the envelope from my hand, then took a big step back, not wanting to catch my disease. I watched her peel open the top flap and peer inside. Her expression shifted to pure befuddlement as she examined the contents. Five-thousand Benjamins, all wrapped up and ready to be spent. After a few moments, she closed the flap and hugged the envelope against her chest like it was something that could protect her from me. 

“Just stay away from me,” she pleaded, such sadness in her tone and in her eyes. It was through tears that she spoke, “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I won’t say a word. Tell Robb that. Just, please, leave me and my daughter alone.”

My eyes watered, and my chest ached so much I wondered if it was another attack. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?” I asked. 

Her expression turned to that of contempt as she brushed a teardrop from her cheek. “What do you care?”

All I wanted to do was drop to my knees and beg for her forgiveness. I didn’t want to leave her alone. I wasn’t meant to leave her alone. I was meant to be there for her, to help her and protect her, but I couldn’t do any of that even when I had the chance. My sick, fragile heart was breaking, but I had no choice. I’d fucked it up too badly, and there was no going back. “I don’t,” I lied. “You’ll never see me again. I promise.”

Her eyes rolled and her head shook, mouth in a frown as she turned. In quick steps, she walked away from me down the sidewalk, manila envelope clutched to her chest. She didn’t believe me. Why should she? But I swore to myself that I would follow through. She was my family, after all, and it was my duty to give her the only thing she’d ever asked from me. I did not follow her this time. I went back to the parking lot, got into my car, and left. 

From there, my memories are still blurry. I can’t remember if it happened the next night, or the night after, probably because I was drunk for that whole period of time. All I remember is that I had woken up from a nap to find it was already nighttime. Sober, but hungover, I reached for the silver locket that I had kept and placed upon my bedside table. For a good half hour, I stared at the picture within it. Rhae. . . I’d never even met her, and still I betrayed her. Unwittingly or not, I put her and her mother in danger. If I had just told Dany the truth from the very start, I could have prevented all of this. 

Eventually, I decided I didn’t want to be sober anymore. I got into my car and drove toward a dive bar I liked because it was dark and quiet. Maybe a mile from my complex, while sitting at a red light at a deserted four-way intersection, I suddenly felt the weight of the world crash into me from the side. I remember being upside down, then right-side-up, then upside down, then right-side-up again. I remember not feeling my legs. I remember tasting blood. I remember Theon’s face as he peered into the shattered diver side window, smirking. I remember him lifting something over his head, and I remember the sound it made when it collided with my skull.

* * * * *

**NOW**

I really need a fucking car. After crawling on my hands and knees out of the shower and putting clean clothes on, I take an Uber to the closest rental car place and sign for a new-ish Camry. My next stop is the driving range. Robb will be expecting me, assuming it was Theon behind the wheel of that Mercedes, and assuming Heather told him I asked about his schedule. 

Indeed, when I find him at the outdoor lounge, smoking cigars with balding men in polo shirts, he gives me a look of sober acceptance. He knows exactly why I’ve come to see him. I walk toward him with purpose, unable to control the scowl that grows upon my face at just the sight of him. He stands and says something to his company, something smug no doubt, some joke about how he’s going to have to take care of a sensitive matter. Maybe he’s asking for privacy, but I don’t care if there are witnesses. As soon as I’m close enough, I snatch the front of his shirt in my fist and drive the other right into his jaw. 

Robb falls, back hitting the low table and knocking over the ash trays and mimosa flutes. His company fan out, taking healthy steps back like I’m a crazed psychopath, and maybe I am now, but I don’t give a shit. I grab Robb’s shirt again, pick him up, and punch him again. A spray of blood erupts from his mouth and nose, staining one of the balding men’s khaki pants. 

“I’m getting security,” one of the men announces. 

“Don’t!” Robb shouts, voice raw and haggard as he flops from the table onto the travertine floors. On his hands and knees, he spits blood onto the stone tiles before picking himself up. “Fucking leave us!” he orders the men. He looks at a waitress and a busboy who are frozen in fear at the other end of the patio. “Get the fuck out of here!” 

Everyone scatters. No one says no to Robb. We could be in the middle of a police station and Robb could empty a room with the snap of his fingers. 

“Shit,” he mutters, swaying on his feet. He touches his bloody nose and winces. “I think you broke my nose.”

I reach out, move his hand from his face, and then thrust the heel of my hand against his nose with upward force. Robb staggers backward with a sharp yelp of pain that quickly turns to sobs as he brings both hands to cradle his face. 

“Now your nose is broken,” I tell him. 

“I guess you realized your shacking up with a whore!” he exclaims.

I wrap my hand around his throat and force his back against a solid wood pillar that bares weight from the slatted awning above. His face is contorted in pain, covered in blood and tears, eyes squinted and mouth in a grimace. His face turns bright red as I clamp down on his neck. “Don’t you ever fucking talk about her,” I sneer close to his face. “This isn’t about her. This is about you trying to fucking _kill me,_ you piece of shit!”

I release him before he passes out, and he falls immediately to the floor, choking and coughing. “Fuck you!” he moans. 

“Fuck me?” I grab his shirt once more and raise my fist. He flinches like a scared puppy, and I almost find myself pitying him. “I remember everything. It wasn’t a goddamn hit and run. You had Theon run me off the road that night. I fucking saw him, Robb! I saw his fucking face!”

Sitting in a slump, his back against the pillar, blood dripping from his nose to stain his white linen shirt, Robb laughs. “What did you expect me to do when I found out were you were fucking me to the FBI? After everything I’ve done for you. After everything my father did for you. Fucking ungrateful.”

Standing over him, I say, “I’m ungrateful? Ned might have been a good man, but your apple sure fell far from the tree. Ever since he died, all you’ve done is drive his company into the ground and make my life a living hell.”

“Boohoo!” He spits out more blood. “So what, Jon? You gonna kill me now? Beat me to death at the fucking driving range? You’ve got balls, cousin, but not a lot of brains.”

“I’m not going to kill you. What’s the point? You have the hard drives. I’ve got nothing to offer the feds now. And no one is going to take my word over yours. You’ve won.”

His eyes roll up, casting a dark stare at me. “Yeah. I’m a real fucking winner. My own cousin tries to get me locked up for shit that’s none of his fucking business. Tries to take me away from my family. Ruin my life. Why? Because I fucked some diner girl? Jesus Christ, Jon. I knew you had a thing for her, but you had a fucking _girlfriend._ Thought that meant something to you, but I guess you’re no better than me after all.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I say through a glower. “You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know she’s a whore.”

The noun triggers my reflexes and a drive the toe of my suede boot into his ribs, knocking him down and eliciting a loud wail from his throat. He clutches his side and writhes upon the floor, flinching every other second like he thinks I’m gearing up to kick him a second time. 

“Stop!” he cries. “Stop, okay?! I’m sorry! I’m sorry I ever fucked her! Goddamn it, she wasn’t even that good anyway.”

I lean over him and clamp my hand under his chin, forcing him to look me in the eye. “It isn’t about you sleeping with her. It’s about what you did after. How you sent Theon after her. How you sent me after her. How you threatened her fucking daughter. You’re a fucking coward.”

“Fine!” he spits. “I’m sorry! Just don’t fucking hit me anymore!”

I let go of him. Stepping back to watch him struggle to pick himself off the floor. I shake my head at how pathetic he looks. “Save your fake apologies. Just stay away from me,” I warn him. “I don’t want to ever see your fucking face again. Or Theon’s. And if I ever find out either of you, or anyone associated with either of you, have come near Dany or her daughter, I will find you, and I will kill you. I don’t care if I go to prison for the rest of my life. It’ll be worth it.”

I turn then, and leave, hoping that the very last time I’ll see Robb’s face is in a bloody, swollen mess, begging for mercy.


	8. Chapter 8

From Ygritte’s agent, I learn that she is at a shoot for Rolex and charm my way into learning the address. The security at the shoot is less amenable, though, and they make me wait for upwards of two hours before Ygritte finally comes out into the studio lobby to greet me, slightly out of breath. I suspect that no one told her I was here until the shoot was finished and as soon as she heard, she came rushing out. She has a yellow gold watch on one wrist and a rose gold on the other, and she is draped in pink taffeta. As soon as she sees me, her expression turns confused. She eyes me up and down and something must click for her, because the first thing she says is, “You remember.”

“Yeah,” I reply. 

She crashes into me, wrapping her arms around my neck and holding me in a tight embrace, like I’ve been overseas for years, leaving her to think I may never return. I pull my hands from my pockets and hug her back, but even this small sign of affection leaves me feeling guilty. My hands meet with her bare back where there is a gap in the fabric of her dress, and I become acutely aware that she can feel how sweaty my palms are.

When she pulls away, she takes my hands into her own. I wince as she gives a squeeze to the one I had smashed against Robb’s face earlier in the day.

Looking down at my swollen, bloodied knuckles, Ygritte frowns. “What happened? Did you get into a fight?”

“I wouldn’t call it a fight,” I reply. “I’m fine, though. Nothing’s broken at least.

She moves her hands instead to my face, the same way she did when she was pleading with me not to go back to the office after my heart attack. “I knew you would come back,” she whispers. 

I smile wistfully, wishing so badly that I had never come back at all. “You were right,” I tell her quietly. “I was a pushover. I should have quit working for Robb a long time ago. I should have quit as soon as he took over the company. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“I do. You meant everything to me for a long time, and then I treated you like you were nothing.”

Her head shook, and her eyes filled with tears. “You couldn’t remember.”

“Even before the accident. I should have treated you better.”

Her arms drape around my neck again, and she pulls me close. I hold her for some time, hoping that it comforts her, though it brings me none. “We can start over,” she whispers. 

I feel completely deflated, like a puppet without anyone to pull my strings. “I can’t,” I solemnly say. 

She pulls away again, blinking at me with questioning eyes. 

I explain, “Too much has happened. I’m not the same person—"

“You keep saying that, but you are the same person. You’re the man I fell in love with.”

“I’ve done things—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If you knew what they were, you would never forgive me.”

“I told you that when you remembered, I would forgive you.”

I let out a breath, avert my gaze, and confess, “I still love her.”

I can feel her processing my words. Slowly, she takes a step back from me. Slowly, she shakes her head. “More than you love me?”

“It isn’t that I love her more,” I say, ready to accept the wrath of God for such an unholy admission. “It’s that I feel like she’s where I belong.” When it becomes clear that Ygritte has nothing to say in response, I add, “I’m so sorry. I hate that I’m hurting you, again.”

Then, she replies in a stoic, hardened voice, “Well, as long as you hate it, I guess that makes it okay.” She turns then, leaving me in the lobby as she disappears behind the studio doors. 

The guards are watching me. I don’t know if they heard our conversation, but I feel their judgement all the same. If they think I’m an idiot, they would be right. For the second time, I have given up on Ygritte for a woman who won’t want anything to do with me once she knows the truth, a woman I shouldn’t even be interested in, but alas, it seems I am cursed to want her. 

As soon as I exit the building and the hot sun beams down on my face, I start to cry. When I’m finished with that, I start walking. I have no idea where my complex is in relation to where I am, but I don’t seem to care about finding home. I walk and walk and walk until I’m sweating through my clothes and the sky turns purple with the setting sun. I find a bar, go inside, and set up shop there until I’m so drunk the bartender has to help me order an Uber, and Davos has to hold my arm all the way up the elevator. I never even make it to my bed. I spend the entire night and well into the next day sleeping atop the cold marble. I do not awaken until a knocking on my apartment door buzzes so loudly in my ear that my eyes are forced to open, and the moment the light hits my naked eyes, they burn. 

At first, I think I hallucinated the sound, but then I hear it again, louder, like it’s beating on the inside of my skull. I drag myself up and stagger to the door. I’m freezing but sticky with stale sweat. I pull my front door open and squint my eyes at the figure in the hall. Petite and fair skinned, hair white as ivory.

“Dany,” I breathe, my voice hoarse from sleep. My eyes trail downward. Beside her is Ghost, tail wagging and tongue hanging out of his wide mouth, happy as can be.

“Jesus Christ,” Dany mutters, looking me up and down. I have no idea what she’s seeing, but it can’t be good. Still, she does not take pity on me. She presses the end of Ghost’s leash to my chest and says, “My daughter is not your fucking babysitter.”

She turns on her heel and marches back to the elevator. As soon as my mind clicks on, I scoot Ghost inside the apartment, shut the door, and run after Dany. 

“Wait, Dany!” I call to her, skidding to a stop just beside her while she presses the elevator’s down button. “I’m sorry I left without telling you what was—”

“You know, I called you,” she interrupts, now glaring at me. “Five times, like an idiot.”

My brain sputters, not remembering any calls. “I didn’t—”

“I took a chance on you,” she says. “Everything in me was screaming that I couldn’t trust you, but I did anyway. You actually had me believing that everything would be alright. That, even if you remembered, you’d still want me.”

_I do still want you,_ I long to say, but can’t. 

“When you left, I could see it in your eyes that that just wasn’t true. The worst part, though, is that you hurt Rhae. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t deserve that. You couldn’t even fucking show up for _her._ ”

I suddenly feel out of breath and lightheaded, as if all the blood has been flushed from my body. Rhae’s talent show. “Dany, I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

She scoffs. “How ironic.”

The elevator doors open, but I can’t stand the thought of her leaving. I try to take her hand, but she rips it away and snaps, “Don’t ever touch me again.”

All I can do after that is watch her get into that elevator and disappear behind its doors. I press one hand to my head and the other to my chest. I haven’t felt this lost since the night of the party, or felt so much pain since waking up in the hospital with my head sewn shut. 

Ghost is lying on his side in the center of my bed when I get back inside. I watch him for a good minute while I kick off my shoes and pants, remembering how broken and lifeless he looked in those woods, covered in blood, and upon that metal operating table, a tube down his throat. I crawl under the covers, feeling similarly broken and lifeless, and Ghost licks the tears from my face. My last friend.

The thought crosses my mind that maybe I should just leave Dany and Rhae alone now, like I had originally planned. I could simply drop myself from their lives altogether, which might be better than telling Dany that this whole time, I have been her nephew by blood. Maybe letting her think that I’ve stopped loving her is less cruel than revealing to her the incestuous nature of that love. 

It takes me two hours of lying motionless in bed, staring up at the ceiling, to decide that it was lying that got us all into this mess in the first place. If I had just told Dany the who I was the first time I walked into that diner, none of this would have happened. I have to tell her the truth now. At the very least, perhaps it will bring her some closure in understanding why I had done the things I did. 

I shower, put clean clothes on and smooth gel into my hair. I leave Ghost at home and take an Uber to a street near the studio where I had left my car yesterday in favor of walking all over the city. Once united with my rented Camry, I drive to the Smoothie shop across the street from Lucille’s. After that, I’m on to Dany’s house. 

It’s sundown when I arrive. Dany should be back from school by now and home alone with Rhae. I knock apprehensively on the red front door. After almost a full minute, the door is pulled open a few feet to reveal Rhae, hair a mess and t-shirt stained with what looks like watercolor paints. She blinks her dark eyes up at me with an expression that is impossible to read, but it is definitely not happiness. 

“Is your mom there?” I ask her nervously. 

“She’s in the shower,” Rhae replies with a quiet monotone. “She won’t wanna talk to you.”

“I brought you something,” I tell her with a hopeful smile, extending to her the pink smoothie in my hand. “A large Watermelon Blitz.”

Calmly, Rhae crosses the threshold and shuts the front door behind her, leaving us both on the porch. She takes the smoothie in both her hands and stares down at it, mouth scrunching to the side of her face like she is studying a message in the drink through the plastic lid. Eventually, she peels off the lid and reaches an arm out so that the cup hovers over the flowerbed that borders the porch. She then tips the cup over, sending the smoothie slopping out into the hydrangea bush. When the cup is completely empty, she puts the lid back on and hands it back to me. 

“Rhae,” I start, “I’m so sorry I missed your talent show. Something came up. An emergency. I really wanted to be there.”

Her bottom lip swelled, and she turned her head down to the bricks underfoot. “I don’t believe you. You said you were gonna hang out with me yesterday, and you lied. You said you were gonna see me in my talent show, and you lied. Everyone else had someone come see them except me.”

I kneel down to her eye level. “I’m sure you did amazing.”

“I didn’t do it!” she cries, suddenly jutting her arms out to shove my chest backwards. I catch myself from falling and watch as Rhae winces in pain, cradling her broken arm against her chest. Her eyes are pink and flooded with tears, her eyelashes and cheeks are wet with them. “I didn’t do the _stupid_ talent show,” she whimpered, “because no one was gonna clap for me, and I just wanted to go home.”

“Rhae, I’m sorry,” I beg, knees on the bricks and everything, dirtying my Ralph Lauren pants. “I wish I had been there. I should have been there.”

“I thought you were gonna be my dad, but my mom says you don’t have time for us anymore.” 

Her words hit me like a brick to the center of my chest. “I do have time for you. I have all the time in the world for you now. I can make this up to you, Rhae. And no matter what happens, I’m always going to be here for you and your mom. Always.”

Rhae ducks her head and pushes the front door open. “I have to go,” she mutters. “I’m not supposed to answer the door.”

“Rhae,” I quickly say before she can shut the door between us. “I love your mom more than you could ever know, and I love you, too. I need you to know that. I need you to tell Dany that.”

Her chin quivers. I reach out, but as soon as my fingers brush her shoulder, she flinches back, like she’s afraid of me. “You don’t love us. You’re a liar, and you made my mom cry. You’re mean.” With that, she croaks out a sob, and slams the door shut, leaving me crumpled and defeated on the front porch, holding an empty smoothie cup.

* * * * *

“Without the hard drives, there is really nothing we can do,” Agent Edd Tollett explains. He sits on my sofa, drinking a cold brew. It’s Tuesday morning, but I’ve been awake since Monday afternoon. My sleep pattern is totally shot to shit, but so is my mental health and my physical health, so why not pile on. “No offense,” he says, “but you’re about as unreliable of a witness as we could have, what with your—” he taps a finger to his head—“scrambled brains and all. Without evidence, no one’s going to believe a word you say about anything.”

I let out a sigh, leaning back in the leather armchair adjacent to the sofa. “So, is that it then? Case closed?”

“Not by a long shot,” replies Edd. “Just going to have to find someone else to be a whistleblower. Names would be helpful.”

“I might have some ideas.” I get up, find a pad and pen in the kitchen and scribble some names onto it, including that of the man Theon shot at the party. I’m willing to bet he’s still a little pissed about that.

“What are you going to do now?” asks Edd.

“I’ve got somewhere I need to be after you leave.”

“I mean, what are you going to do with your life now?”

I put the pen down and walk the paper to Edd. “I don’t know. Getting out of this apartment would be a nice start. Maybe get a little house with a yard for Ghost. Get a job obviously. I think I might try teaching. Give practicing law a break. I always wanted to be a professor.”

Nodding, Edd pockets the scrap and sets his drink on the coffee table. He stands and extends his hand. “Well, good luck.” I shake his hand, then see him to the door. 

* * * * *

I get to Dany’s house a few hours before I know she’ll have to pick Rhae up from school, hoping she isn’t out running errands. In the last two days I have thought a lot about Dany’s situation in relation to the money I had given her, realizing that she was able to get a good car, and afford to go back to school without threatening the livelihood of her and her daughter. They had health insurance now, because I watched Dany scribble the information down on Rhae’s hospital forms when she broke her arm. Their house hadn’t been foreclosed on. These things brought me enough happiness not to completely self-destruct. I had already made one decision that benefitted them. Maybe this will be another good decision, no matter how hard it will be. 

I knock on the door with my left hand. Soon, it is pulled open, and I am face to face with Dany. She looks tired, like she too hadn’t slept at all last night. She’s in grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, and her hair is in a messy ponytail, but she may as well be an angel to me. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks with a vacant expression, not unlike the one Rhae treated me with Sunday evening. 

“Can I talk to you?” I gently ask. “Please?”

She looks away, tucking loose hairs behind her ear, and steps aside. I walk in cautiously, like I’ve never been here before, and I want not to venture anywhere that would displease Dany, so I stay in the foyer. 

Once the front door is shut, Dany crosses her arms and asks, “What do you want?”

“To tell you the truth.”

The house is so silent I can hear Dany swallow. “Well, get on with it then.”

Where to begin? I clear my throat. “My car accident. . . It wasn’t an accident. Robb set it all up.”

Her eyes lift to meet mine, widening, but her expression barely changes beyond that. 

I continue: “The guy from the party. The one with the gun. The same guy who threatened you. He did it. He slammed into me, ran me off the road. I saw his face before he hit me over the head with some sort of pipe, or maybe it was a crowbar.”

She grimaces, and I feel guilty that she might be pitying me now, because she won’t in a bit. “Is that what happened to your hand?” she asks. 

I lift my right hand, my knuckles bruised and scabbed. “Robb,” I say. 

“Did you kill him?” She asks.

I shake my head. 

“Why would he want you dead?”

“The FBI agent that was outside my door that day. . . I was whistleblowing on the company, and on Robb. He found out, I guess. I wasn’t exactly in a good state of mind when I stole a bunch of documents off his computer. Probably left a trail or something. Someone probably saw me on the security camera tapes going into his office while he was gone, and it started from there.”

Silence sweeps over us as I watch Dany process the information. Soon, she asks, “So, you remember the party?”

“I remember everything.”

“You remember what I did. . .”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I assure her, my voice growing more confident. “I mean, it makes me physically sick to think about it, but that’s only because I’m angry with myself that you felt you had to do that. I should have been there for you.”

“You didn’t know me. We were strangers then. I didn’t want anything from you,” she says, and it’s almost like she’s trying to comfort me, and I hate myself even more for it. The truth is, she is an angel. She’s my angel. I bring only misery onto myself, and she washes it all away. This time, though, I deserve to be miserable. 

I shake my head sadly. “I knew enough. I knew that I wanted to protect you, but I couldn’t. I knew that I cared about you, but I couldn’t admit why. I knew that I loved you, even then.”

Her eyes grow glassy as her eyebrows furrow with confusion. “I don’t understand,” she says, just above a whisper. 

“It’s my fault,” I confess. “It was all my fault. If I hadn’t been going into Lucille’s that night, Robb never would have run into me. He never would have met you. You never would have been at that party. If I hadn’t chickened out the first time I saw you. . . If I had just gone up to you, and talked to you, and told you. . .” I look down to the floor, still so afraid. 

“When? Tell me what?” Dany asks. 

I pick up my head and inhale deeply. It’s now or never. “It was about a month before Robb and I came into the diner that night. I had hired a private investigator, and he gave me your name and the address of Lucille’s. One of your coworkers pointed you out to me, but as soon as I saw you, I just. . . I freaked out. I was too scared. I didn’t know what to say.”

Flustered, Dany stammers out a reply, “I don’t – I’m confused. What? Why would you. . ?

“My mom had just recently passed away,” I explain. “Toward the end, I wasn’t able to visit her as often as I should have, so when she would have bouts of lucidity, she would write everything she wanted to tell me in letters before she could forget who I was entirely.” I pull the last letter she wrote to me from my back pocket and hand it to Dany. 

She eyes it oddly. “You want me to read it?”

I nod. 

Dany steps forward and takes the letter. She flips open the tab on the envelope and slides the thin piece of parchment from it. She reads the words aloud through a soft whisper:

_“Dear Jon,_

_Not a day has gone by that I have not wondered if I should have told you this sooner. Truthfully, I am still afraid that this information may do you more harm than good. Sometimes, the not knowing is actually better than the knowing. I hope that is not the case here, because I fear that if I do not give you this information soon, you will be forced to live your life never knowing who your father is. No matter what fortune, or misfortune, this information brings you, just know that you were the best thing that ever happened to me, and to have you as my son has been the greatest gift anyone could ever have._

_I do not know if he is alive or dead, if he is sick or well, if he is kind or cruel, only that he was tall, with pale blonde hair and blue eyes, and loved Motley Crue. I never saw him after the night we spent together, and I was never pressed to search for him, even after I found out I was pregnant. He is your father, though. I know this for certain, because he was the first man I was ever with. He told me his name was Rhae—”_

Dany’s breath catches on the word, lips tightening together as her hand raises to her face. She presses her fingertips to the corner of her eye where moisture has formed. Her bottom lip quivers as she finishes the name: _“Rhaegar Targaryen.”_

There is another short paragraph to the letter, but Dany has stopped reading aloud. I’m not even sure if she’s reading at all anymore, but her eyes remain trained on the page as I try desperately to gauge her reaction. When she finally looks up at me, there is a defiance about her, like she is fighting not to believe it. “I don’t understand,” she mutters. “Why would she write this?”

“I’m so sorry, Dany,” I whisper, stepping closer to her out of my own desperation to hold her tight. “I didn’t know. I mean, I knew, but I couldn’t remember that I knew. The letter – it was in a safety deposit box – one I didn’t remember having. This whole time, I knew you meant something to me before the crash. I knew I cared about you, but it never crossed my mind that you and I were family.”

Her head shakes rapidly from side to side, her eyes wide and red. “No. No, there’s got to be a mistake.”

“How many Rhaegar Targaryens can there be in the world?”

The letter and envelope slip from her fingers and drift down to the floor like feathers detaching from a bird. She drops her face into her hands, and for a short time I think she’s just processing, but then she begins to shake, and I hear her sniffling against her palms – telltale signs of tears.

I take another step forward and reach my hand to her shoulder. “Dany—”

She shrugs me away and zips past me, moving quickly into the hallway, but before she makes it to her bedroom, she stops. She drops to her knees, immediately curling in on herself. I hear her sob into her hands. The sight causes my own tears to break free. I feel so helpless, and so to blame. I don’t know what to do. When I realized what I had done. . . that I had been sleeping with my own aunt while trapped under a shade of memory loss, I ended up puking in the shower. 

Carefully, I step down the hall and when I reach Dany, I stoop and rest my hand upon her back. Immediately, though, she bursts out of her ball and shoves me away. “Leave me alone!” she cries. “Just leave me alone!”

I quickly stand and make for the front door, unable to swipe the tears from my face fast enough. Before I get to the door, Dany’s voice cries out again.

“Wait!” I turn and she’s looking up at me, her face red and wet, and a line of snot drips from her nose. “Don’t leave me,” she pleads.

As quickly as I moved away from her, I move back, dropping to my knees and pulling her against me. Her face presses into my shoulder, and she cries. It’s the sort of cry when you’re so afraid, so lonely, and so confused that all you can do is cry. It’s the sort of cry when your heart feels like it is literally breaking, piece by piece. It’s the sort of cry where you’re feeling physical pain from unseen wounds. It’s the sort of cry that leaves you choking and gasping for each breath because your body has suddenly forgotten how to function properly. It’s a cry of shock, and horror, and desperation. 

For so long, her body just shakes. She shakes like a leaf in a hurricane. Her fingers claw at my back like she’s afraid she’ll blow away and be lost forever. I feel her tears on my skin – they have soaked through my shirt. When she has finally cried all that she possibly can, she simply moans and whimpers against me as I rub my hands up and down her back. 

It feels like twenty minutes has past but eventually, she leans back, separating herself from me. She ducks her head down, lifts the hem of her shirt and wipes her face with the thin fabric, leaving it damp in several spots. I smooth the loose hairs back from where they stick to her wet cheeks. 

“What did I do?” she whimpers, sitting back on her heels and staring down at her lap. “I feel sick. No wonder you ran away from me.”

The words break whatever pieces of my heart are still left intact. How could she blame herself? She never did anything wrong. It was me. I was the one who couldn’t leave her alone. I was the one who initiated everything. I was the one who knew we were related. I just. . . I just couldn’t remember. 

“I didn’t run away from you,” I insist, my own voice hoarse with emotion. “There were things I had to do.”

“You were disgusted by me.”

“No. I could never be disgusted by you. You’re perfect, Dany.” I take her face in my hands and lift her gaze to me. Before I can muster up the good sense to stop talking, I confess, “I love you so much.”

Her eyes flicker with realization, her lips parting. “How can you say that?” she whispers, shaking her head with a look like I’ve grown a second head. 

“I told you, I’m here to tell you the truth.”

“I wish you’d never told me.” She turns, moving to her hands and knees until she finds the strength to stand, and then she staggers into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. 

With some panic, I stand too and go to the door. I knock, but there is no response. “Dany,” I say through the wood panel. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair, I know. I don’t know why I’m like this, or why I can’t just love you the way I’m supposed to. I need you to know, though, that no matter how you feel about me, I am still here for you. I still want to be a part of your life, and of Rhae’s. I want to help you and protect you the way that I couldn’t at that party, and when you were threatened. I can keep you safe this time. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. I’ll be your nephew if that’s what you want. I’ll be Rhae’s cousin. I’ll—”

The door opens and my eyes immediately lock with Dany’s. She looks on the verge of a second round of tears. “She can never know,” she insists, voice quiet but earnest. “Rhae can’t know about this, ever. Promise me.”

“I promise.” I would promise her anything she could ever want. 

“Does anyone else know?” she asks. 

“No. No one knows. Not unless you count the PI.”

Dany takes in a deep breath, turning to stare at the doorframe rather than meet my eyes. “You’re my family,” she states. “You’re a Targareyn.”

“I’m Jon Snow,” I answer. “Your brother may be my father, but he isn’t real to me. He didn’t raise me. I never even met him. I don’t know anything about him. I don’t even know what he looks like. Why am I obligated to stop loving you because some stranger who died thirty years ago screwed my mom after a fucking Motley Crue concert?” I pause, because none of what I’m saying is helpful. When I’ve calmed, I say, “But you’re real to me. You’re the realest thing about my whole life. All I want is to make you happy, and if that means that I have to let you go, then. . .” What I want to say is _then I can handle that,_ but that’s a lie. I wouldn’t be able to handle that. I would do it. I would slip into the background and watch her life move on without me, but I would be broken, totally and completely. “I’m just grateful for the time I was able to spend with you and Rhae.”

She meets my eyes now, and though her expression looks pained by my admission, she whispers, “I don’t want to lose you. Why did you have to tell me? We could have been happy,” She takes my hand, my aching, swollen hand and flattens my palm against the center of her chest. “Tell me what to do.”

I lean forward, resting my forehead against hers. The tips of our noses touch. I shut my eyes and just feel her heartbeat below my palm. We stand like this for a long minute. I could stay this way forever. She eventually shifts, and I feel her parted lips against mine. They rest there; I breathe in her breaths, and she breathes in mine. And soon, the pressure increases. Our lips begin to move together. Her tongue slides into my mouth, and I meet it halfway. She tastes like strawberries. 

Kissing her like this only strengthens my resolve that nothing has changed within my heart. I still want her, in every way. “We can still be happy,” I tell her, voice so soft I can hardly hear my own words.  
She moves my inured hand to her lips and presses gentle kisses to each battered knuckle. “I told you not to fight anymore,” she murmurs against my skin. 

I smooth back her hair with my other hand. “It wasn’t really a fight.”

Her head lifts and our eyes meet. “Tell me what to do,” she repeats. 

“I was hoping you would tell me what to do.”

She swallows. “Don’t leave me like that again.”

“I won’t,” I insist.

“And don’t ever hurt my daughter again.”

“I won’t,” I insist softer.

Just then, she raises to her toes and hugs me tightly around the neck. Immediately, I circle my arms around her middle and pull her firmly against me. It’s as if I’m trying to become one with her, to fuse with her in such a way that will ensure I could never lose her. Her body is so warm against me. I’ve never been this warm before.

When she lowers from her toes and retracts her arms, I see how tired she is – exhausted really, and I realize just how exhausted I am, too. 

We fall asleep together, curled up into each other upon Dany’s bed under a blanket of afternoon heat that radiates in through the single pane window above the headboard. The next time my eyes open, it is because Dany’s cellphone is buzzing and jingling a simple tune from atop her nightstand. She groans, disentangles her limbs from mine, and sits up. I peak at her phone as she turns off her alarm. It’s 1:30 – almost time for Rhae to be picked up. 

“What are we going to do?” I ask from behind her, wanting to let her lead the way. I reach my hand up, sliding it underneath her shirt to feel her hot flesh as I caress her spine.

“I don’t know,” she answers. “I don’t know anything.”

“All I know is that I love you.”

She turns, our eyes connecting. In response, she crawls back to me and presses an innocent kiss to my forehead, then my cheek, then my nose, and finally my mouth. She’s climbing out of bed after that and going into her closet. I scoot to sit on the edge of the bed and work my shoes back onto my feet. When Dany emerges from the closet, she’s changed her clothes to jeans and a blouse. She’s running a brush through her hair to untangle the thick waves. “I need some time,” she tells me with a sober look. “I need to talk to Rhae.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

Apprehensively, she replies, “That you want to be with us. That’s still what you want, right?”

“Yes.” I immediately answer, standing and going to her. “Yes,” I repeat in earnest, resting my hands on her hips.

The corners of her mouth twitch with the hint of a smile, her cheeks turning the faintest shade of pink. “Okay. We just need some time. I need some time. I need to think and process. I’m still kind of in shock. I don’t want to. . . I’m not. . .” Her words fail her, like she isn’t even sure what she’s trying to say.

“Don’t give up on me,” I pitifully request, hoping that the offer to tell Dany what to do is still on the table. 

She responds only with a look – one of _those_ looks that I may never truly figure out. Then, with her hair all brushed out, she sets the brush atop her dresser and takes a step back from me. “How do I look?” she asks, as if it is inevitable I will tell her she’s hideous. 

I look her up and down, though the action is unnecessary for my answer. “You look beautiful.”

Smiling such a sweetly sad smile, Dany asks, “But objectively, does it look like I’m in the throes of an existential crisis and need to be committed?” 

“Objectively. . . you look beautiful.”

Dany’s smile stretches, but so does her sadness. Her eyes begin to water. “Fuck,” she mutters, rolling her eyes at herself. “What is wrong with me?”

“Don’t cry,” I softly insist, taking her shoulders in my hands. “Do you want to hear a joke?”

As she fans her face with her hand, she nods. 

“Why are ants always getting sick?”

“Why?” she asks with a pouted lip. 

“Because they have very little anty-bodies.” 

Immediately, she bursts into a laugh that releases the tears flooding her eyelids. As they slide down the curve of her pink cheeks, I stretch the fabric of my shirt to wipe them away. She smiles so wide I see all her teeth and the sight eases my fears of the future.

“You’re still my Jon,” she says. “That makes me happy.”

When Dany is ready to leave the house, I walk with her to the front door and pick up my mom’s letter, folding it up and sticking it in my back pocket. We leave together, but before we break off to head to our respective cars, we pull each other in for one last lingering hug. Dany whispers beside my ear, “I’ll call you tonight.”

I reply with a nod and a kiss to the side of her head, already looking forward to hearing her voice.

* * * * *

**TWO MONTHS LATER**

Spread out on my new shag rug, I meditate under the soft gusts of air from the ceiling fan above. The sliding door behind me is open for when Ghost is finished with his outside-business and wants to come back in. My eyes are closed, and I focus on the gentle chirping of birds, and the sound of the August breeze as it blows past the avocado tree. I breathe in and out slowly, keeping my heartrate down and my muscles relaxed. 

When my phone buzzes under my hand, I force my eyes open. It’s a text:

_Slurpee stop. 5 minutes away._

My soft chuckle turns to a groan as I sit myself up, the bones in my spine crackling as I curl my back and roll my shoulders. I twist around and see that Ghost had the same idea as me. He’s spread out on his back, head lulled to the side, underneath the shade of the avocado tree. 

When I finally peel myself from the area rug, I pull open the front door and walk out into the Summer sun. The heat wave is on a downward turn, but it is still pushing ninety degrees. I hear children laughing and look down the street to see a handful of kids in swimwear hopping across a front yard while the sprinklers blast them. I like this street. Quiet and suburban, but walking distance from cute shops, easy restaurants, and a movie theater. The house itself is perfect. Not very big, but it has three bedrooms and a big backyard for Ghost. The floors downstairs are hardwood, but my new rug makes it all feel cozier. I’m thinking of painting the walls a forest green and the front door a lucky red. 

“Hey there!” exclaims a man’s voice, chipper and kind. 

I turn my head and see my new neighbor, out in his front yard, taking hedge clippers to the shrubs that line his front porch. He gives me a bright smile and hardy wave before setting down his clippers and stepping lively toward me. He is a round man, young like me and with thin brown hair slicked back with sweat. I feel my own forehead begin to perspire under the sun’s rays. 

“How’s moving going?” The man asks. Sam, I believe his name is. We had spoken last week, just briefly. So far, he’s the only neighbor I’ve had any interaction with. It’s awkward for me. I’m not used to acknowledging the people who live around me. Even with all my memories intact, I can’t name one other tenant of my old condo complex.

I hop down from my porch. “It’s going good. I mean, I haven’t done a whole lot. Ninety-five percent of my stuff is still in boxes.”

Sam chuckles and gestures toward his own house. “Yeah, my wife did most of the unpacking when we moved in about a year ago. I’m a chemist at the USC medical center.”

“No shit? I work there, too. Not at the medical center, but at USC,” I say. “Actually, I guess I don’t technically work there yet. Not for another couple of weeks at least – until the semester begins. I’m going to be teaching there this fall.”

The man’s plump face brightens with genuine interest. “What’re you teaching?”

“Corporate contract law,” I reply with a little laugh at how absolutely boring that sounds. 

His head nods slowly, losing some of that interest. “Interesting.”

A woman appears out of Sam’s front door, a toddler perched on her hip. She calls out to him, something about him needing to get cleaned up for dinner before too long. Sam waves back to her in response, and the woman disappears back into the house. 

“Your wife?” I ask him. 

Smiling brightening again, Sam nods more vigorously. “Gilly,” he says. 

“And was that your son?” I ask. 

Again, he nods. “Little Sam.”

“And you’re Big Sam, then?” At least I remembered his name. 

He laughs. “Do you have any kids?”

“No,” I answer. “But, maybe soon.”

Sam gives a somewhat confused look which quickly morphs into pure shock, attention shifting to something behind me. I turn and see a bolt of white zooming across my front lawn. I’d forgotten to shut the front door behind me. 

“Ghost!” I shout, but before I break into a sprint after him, I see what he’s running toward. 

The big white shepherd skids to a stop beside the curb and is immediately wrapped up in the little arms of Rhae Targaryen, her cheek nestling in his fur. She’s wearing her Camp Fire Kids t-shirt, having been at her Summer program all day, and a wide grin. Dany comes around the car, sucking on a pink straw stuck into a blue Slurpee, and waves at me. She’s in her yellow Dorothy dress, having picked Rhae up right after getting off work, and she has on her big, wide-frame sunglasses. 

“I’ve got to go,” I tell Sam. “It was nice chatting.” I turn and leave the man to finish up his chores without an attempt to introduce him to Dany and Rhae. Not very neighborly of me, but I can be neighborly tomorrow. Right now, I’m just excited to see my ladies again.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Rhae exclaims, jumping from Ghost to Dany and prying the blue Slurpee from her hands. “You shoulda gotten your own!”

“I didn’t want my own. I just wanted some of yours,” Dany replies with a pout at having to give up the sugary drink.

When I reach them, I pull Dany into a tight embrace, burying my face in her neck and breathing in that cherry blossom scent I’m so addicted to. When we part, Dany orders Rhae to take Ghost inside. “Why is he out here without a leash on?” she asks me. “Do you want him to get hit by a car?”

“I forgot to shut the front door.”

Even with her sunglasses on, I can feel the look she’s giving me. Her hand raises to the side of my head, fingers dipping into my hair and grazing my scar. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Did you make that doctor’s appointment?”

“I’m fine,” I insist, taking her hand from my head and pressing a kiss to the back of it. 

She’s worried about me. She’s been worried about me ever since I regained my memories, because I no longer live with the naivety of not knowing my own limitations. I remember the anxiety problems I began having during law school that have only gotten worse with age. I remember my mother’s symptoms, how young she was when she was diagnosed, and that I may very well suffer the same fate. I remember my struggles with insomnia. I remember my propensity to treat emotional stress with alcohol. I remember my heart attack. I always tell Dany I’m fine, but the truth is, I worry about myself even more than she worries about me. I’ve spent the last two months trying to get well and trying to break all the habits I now remember I have, because I want to be healthy for Dany, and for Rhae. 

“I have an appointment next week, but I don’t want you to worry. I got my memories back, didn’t I? My brain must be doing alright.” I pull off her sunglasses, hook them onto the collar of my shirt, and look into her blue eyes, squinted under the sun. “I missed you.”

She smiles. “It’s Monday, and you were over at our house all weekend.”

“I still missed you.”

We go inside and find Rhae wrestling with Ghost on my new rug. My eyes immediately focus on Ghost’s paws as well as Rhae’s shoes and how the bottoms of them dig into the clean shag. It’s almost painful to watch, literally. My face feels hot and my heartbeat rises. I take in a breath, reminding myself that it’s just a rug. It wasn’t even that expensive. I could easily have it cleaned, or even get a new one. And it’s grey, not white, so dirt won’t show up as easily. This is another downside to getting my memories back: I remember my slightly obsessive need to keep everything in my home pristine, clean and tidy. With a nine-year-old around, though, let alone one as rambunctious as Rhae, I can’t let myself get worked up over these things anymore, not when I’m trying to have her and Dany in my life as much as possible. 

“Jon, you haven’t unpacked anything,” Dany complains with a small laugh, looking around at all the boxes that consume the home, still taped up. 

“That’s not true. I unpacked the rug.”

“Yeah? Have you been sleeping on the rug?”

“No, I’ve got my mattress upstairs. I haven’t unpacked the sheets yet, though, but I threw a sleeping bag on top of it, so it’s alright.”

She shakes her head, laughing some more. Rhae’s Slurpee sits unattended on the kitchen counter, and Dany lifts it to her lips, taking a few sips from the neon pink straw. 

“Stop it!” Rhae’s shrill voice demands as she scratches Ghost’s belly. 

With a sigh of defeat, Dany relinquishes the half-consumed Slurpee back where she found it. I put my hands on her hips and bring my lips down to hers, immediately dipping my tongue into her mouth to taste the cold sugar that lingers in her mouth. After a few seconds of this, I step back and give a satisfied hum. “Mmm, raspberry.”

Dany’s cheeks pinken and she looks away from me. Intimacy is still strange for her; there is still so much residual shame that simply cannot be ignored. I know she wants to be affectionate, based on how often her hands touch me: my hair, my scalp, my face, my back. She’s almost always holding my hand, and when we hug, it’s hard for her to let go. But we haven’t gotten past second base since before I told her who my father is. Just now, she can’t look me in the eyes, but she takes one of my hands into both of hers and holds it tight to her chest like it’s a stuffed animal. No matter how much I want her, and how often, I try not to push her. There really are no books or support groups on how to cope with being in a committed relationship with your blood relative. We only have each other in that regard. 

I lean into her and press a kiss to the center of her forehead, because I know she loves that, and then I call out to Rhae. “Hey, Rhae! I got you a present!”

Immediately, Rhae disentangles herself from Ghost and runs over to us. I separate from Dany and open one of the kitchen cupboards. They’re all empty, except for what I stashed in this one not long before Dany and Rhae arrived. I take the large gift bag out and pass it along to Rhae, who eagerly snatches it and carries it back to the rug. 

“Jon, you shouldn’t keep getting her gifts,” Dany says. “She’s going to get spoiled.”

I smile mischievously. “Maybe I want her to be spoiled.”

“Holy snickerdoodle!” Rhae squeals, having dumped the contents of the gift bag out onto the floor. “It’s every Fast and the Furious movie ever! Even Tokio Drift!”

“Got to have Tokio Drift,” I say. 

Dany shakes her head at me but is smiling nonetheless at her daughter’s joy. “Those better not be rated R,” she warns me with a finger pointed at my chest. 

“They’re all PG-13,” I assure. “I think.”

“Can we watch them tonight?!” Rhae loudly asks. 

“Of course,” I answer. “As soon as I figure out which box my Blu-ray player is in.”

“Well, first let’s figure out what we’re going to do about food,” Dany says. “I haven’t eaten anything yet today.”

With a hopeful look, I suggest picking something up from this really amazing Indian food restaurant that is just down the street. Dany seems apprehensive to the idea. 

“You don’t like Indian food?” I ask her. 

“Actually, I love Indian food,” she says. “I’m just not sure if Rhae will eat it.”

“I want to try it!” exclaims Rhae. 

Dany looks to where her daughter still sits on the living room floor. “Are you sure?”

Rhae is sure, so we all go out to eat. While we wait to be seated, I pick up a copy of the LA Times from a stack by the restaurant’s front door. The headline catches my eye. _Business Mogul Robb Stark and Close Associates Arrested on Fraud, Money Laundering Charges._ I skim the article, then hand it to Dany who does the same. After a few minutes, she hands the paper back to me and says, “Good. Fuck ‘em.” 

I nod slowly, squinting down at the color photograph of Robb and Theon being walked into the police station, wrists in steel cuffs behind their backs. 

“You’re conflicted,” Dany surmises. She takes one of my hands and holds it tightly in her lap. 

“I don’t know,” I reply, confirming just how conflicted I am. “He’s got a wife and a son.”

“He’s getting what he deserves, Jon. It doesn’t matter what the charges are. He deserves to pay for what he did to you.”

I throw the paper back onto the stack and watch Rhae as she plays Candy Crush on Dany’s phone with a very intense look on her face. She won’t hear a word I say even if I shout, but I lower my voice anyway. “If he hadn’t done what he did, I never would have found you again,” I tell Dany. 

“Don’t,” whispers Dany. She hates it when I start to apply silver linings to nearly being killed. 

“I’m not saying I’m glad it happened – I hate him for what he did. But I also don’t like the thought of me spending the rest of my life away from you, pretending you mean nothing to me, which is what I was planning to do before I forgot that was what I was planning to do.”

Chewing on her bottom lip, Dany watches our hands in her lap. 

“You’re conflicted,” I say with a small smile.

She lifts her eyes to mine and offers a sober smile back. “The only good thing that man ever did for me was give me that money. But I suppose that’s all a man like that is good for. They substitute morality for wealth. And for what he did to you. . . I want him to suffer. I know he’s your family, but—"

“He’s not,” I say. “He never really was. His father was good to me after my mom got sick – hired me, but. . .”

The restaurant hostess announces that a table is ready for us, and she takes us back into the dining hall. The discussion ends there, substituted for lighter talk about what in the world Rhae might find appealing on the menu. 

* * * * *

We watch The Fast and the Furious once the sun is down, and by the end, Rhae is fast asleep upon the shag rug with Ghost napping beside her. Dany and I spend twenty minutes looking for the boxes containing all the bedding. In them, I find a plush throw pillow and a quilt. Dany takes them to Rhae and wraps up her little sleeping form to make her cozy. Rhae never once awakens. 

Hand in hand, we go up the stairs and into the master bedroom. It isn’t as big as the bedroom at my old condo, but it looks huge what with there being hardly anything in it. Against one wall is my mattress, lying flat on the carpeted floor, and against another wall is my dresser without anything on top of it. There is not one painting or picture upon the walls and the only bedding on my mattress is an open face sleeping bag and a down comforter without a duvet. 

“Jon,” says Dany, hands on her hips. “You cannot keep sleeping like this.” She goes to the dresser and pulls open each drawer. “Jon, you barely have anything in here. Where are all your clothes?”

“In a box. In the kitchen.”

Her eyes roll, but she can’t keep the smile off her face. She reaches behind her and unzips her dress, but leaves it bunched around her hips while she takes one of my long t-shirts from the drawer. She does not take her bra off until she has the shirt on, and she does not slide the dress the rest of the way down her legs until the shirt conceals what removing the dress would have revealed. She still can’t undress normally in front of me, and I try not to take it personally. I don’t have such qualms. I peel off my shirt and jeans the same as I would do if no one were here, until I’m only in my boxers. 

Dany leans back against the dresser, watching me shamelessly. I close the gap between us and wrap her up in a tight embrace, my arms around her waist, hands flat against her back. Her arms curl around my chest, hands splayed upon the backs of my shoulders. My eyes shut, and I’m content to hold her this way all night long. But being pressed so flush against her poses a delicate situation, one that is severely threatened when Dany’s breath hits my ear, and she whispers, “I love you.”

I inhale a sharp breath through my teeth and quickly step back. “Don’t do that,” I say. 

Face scrunching in confusion and offense, Dany asks, “Do what?”

“Whisper in my ear like that.”

Now, she’s more confused than offended. “Why not?”

“It makes me. . .” I roll my eyes downward bashfully. 

Slowly, the light comes back to Dany’s eyes and the corners of her mouth lift into a wide comical grin. “Me whispering in your ear makes you hard?”

I nod. 

“Since when?”

“Since always. And because it’s been a while since we’ve done anything, it does not take much for you to get me going.”

As slowly as her smile formed, it falls, and she sucks her bottom lips between her teeth with a look of nervousness. 

“You think that’s wrong,” I say quietly, suddenly ashamed. 

Her head shakes. “You know that I don’t.”

I swallow. I know she has told me she doesn’t, but a large part of me still believes Dany thinks my wiring is faulty, and maybe it is. “I told you, Dany. If you ever decide you don’t want this—”

“What do you want?” she interrupts. 

“I want you to move in with me.”

A small piece of her smile returns. She reaches out, takes my hands, and brings me back to her. I rest my hands on her hips as she lifts up on her toes, leans close to my ear, and breathes, “You can’t even unpack your own shit. You want me to add all of mine and Rhae’s to the mix?”

As she speaks, a low moan escapes my mouth, and I involuntarily pull Dany’s hips against mine and grind my growing erection against her. When she is finished speaking, Dany gasps and pushes me back from her. That wide, amused grin is back in full force upon her face. 

“Oh my God, Jon. What was that?” she asks with incredulous amusement. 

“I told you not to whisper in my ear!” I exclaim before letting out a breath and trying to calm myself. “I’m going to unpack. I promise. Definitely before the end of Summer.”

Dany’s head shakes, and she pushes herself off the dresser. She flips off the bedroom light, finds my hand in the dark, and takes me to bed. 

Typically, I’ll make a genuine attempt at falling asleep for as long as it takes for Dany to drift off. Then, I’ll lie with my eyes open at the dark ceiling, listening to her gentle breathing. She doesn’t snore, but she does this thing where every exhale through her nose is strong enough to hear. Sometimes that repetitious sound is enough to lull me to sleep after an hour or so. Sometimes, nothing is enough, and I spend all night until dawn playing games on my phone while Dany sleeps, curled against my side. 

Tonight, though, while I’m still in the attempt-to-fall-asleep stage, I feel Dany shift against me. I pay it no mind until I feel her lips brush my ear. She whispers, “Jon? Are you asleep?”

My eyes spring open, being met only with the darkness above me. “Uh-uh,” I reply warily, feeling the blood rush back down to my dick. 

“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“Hm?” I hum, feeling my dick twitch with every word she speaks.

“I think I want us to move in with you.”

I stifle a moan and turn my head to look her in the eyes. I can just barely make out the pale of her skin. “You do?” I ask. 

“Well, you live close enough to Rhae’s school that she wouldn’t have to switch. I’ll have to talk to her about it, but I think she’ll be excited. She loves you, and she especially loves Ghost.”

I bring my hand to her cheek and trace her bottom lip with my thumb before I lean forward and capture it between my lips. She kisses me back without any hesitation, sweeping her tongue into my mouth as soon as our lips part. But after a minute, she breaks the sloppy kiss and turns it into a hug, rolling partially on top of me and holding me tight. I hold her back, relishing her body heat. She might be a tease, but she’s my tease, and I’d rather be teased by her every day of my life without any payoff then be with anyone else. 

However, just when I start to picture unsexy things that might bring down my erection, Dany’s breath hits my ear again. This time, it is to say, “I want you, Jon.”

A soft moan escapes my throat, and I involuntarily lift my hips, brushing my swelling cock against Dany’s thigh. 

She doesn’t stop there, though. She then whispers, “I want you to fuck me so bad.”

I shift my hips up again, rubbing myself against her leg, and I slide a hand down to squeeze her ass, pressing her even closer to me as if there is any space between us that needs closing. 

She pushes it even further. “I don’t care if it’s wrong. I miss feeling you inside me.”

With that, all restraint leaves my body. I grab her hips, roll her onto her back and collide my mouth with hers as I gyrate against her. Her legs part, and I press myself against the warmest part of her body. With each thrust forward of my hips, a lustful whimper leaves her mouth and into mine. 

I could cum just like this – just rubbing my cock against her pussy through the thin fabrics of our underwear. But then Dany takes my face in her hands, and breathes against my mouth, “Stop, Jon. Stop.”

My body is on fire, but somehow I find the strength to abide by her command, and I cease all of my ministrations. Breathing heavily, I rest my forehead against hers. I soon discover that she told me to stop because she could sense the same thing of my body that I had – that I was already close. She reaches down and shimmies off her panties. I reach down as well and maneuver off my boxers, but then realization strikes. I rest back on top of her, my aching erection lying atop her thigh, and I admit, “I don’t know where my condoms are packed.”

“It’s okay,” she replies. I can’t see it, but I can hear the smile in her voice. “I’m on birth control now.”

My eyebrows raise. “For me?”

Even before Dany bursts into a fit of giggles, I feel the embarrassment of my question. Even in the dark, I feel the need to hide. I duck my head and press my face into the valley between her breasts that are still concealed by her shirt. Her hands go to the back of my head, gliding her fingers down my scalp. 

“Yes, baby. Just for you,” she says through her quiet laughter. 

I tip my head up and attach my mouth to her neck. I slide my hand up her shirt and find her nipple with my fingertips. Her giggles soon dissolve into pleasurable sighs and little moans. I feel her hand dip between us and curl around my cock. She gives it two slow strokes before guiding it to where she wants it most. As soon as she has me nestled between her folds, I move my mouth to hers, kiss her deeply, and press my cock inside of her. It’s pure extasy, feeling her this way without anything keeping my skin from hers. 

“Go slow,” she breathes between our wet kisses. 

I do as she requests, making love to her gently as I roll my fingers around her nipple. I give her a taste of her own medicine: I lower my mouth to her ear and tell her in quiet whispers how amazing she feels, how wet she feels, how sexy she is, and how I fantasize every single day about doing what we’re doing right now. I tell her I love her. 

Tonight, sleep comes easy to me, and getting to fall asleep with my spent cock still nestled within Dany’s warm pussy feels just as amazing as getting to cum inside her while she shivers through an orgasm beneath me. I think I even fall asleep before Dany does, because the last thing I remember before I wake up is the feel of her hand gliding up and down my spine. 

This time, when I awaken, the morning sun streaming in through the gaps in the window blinds, I look upon Dany’s sleeping form and feel an immense sense of peace. She’s on her belly, the way I usually find her. I crawl overtop her and press kisses to the side of her face and cheek. A small moan leaves her throat before her eyes blink open. 

“Do you hear that?” she asks, voice quiet and groggy from sleep. 

I focus my ears and, indeed, I hear faint voices from downstairs. It’s the TV. Rhae is already awake. 

Dany turns onto her back. “I should get up,” she whispers, but she drifts back to sleep as soon as her eyes shut. I press a chaste kiss to her lips, then crawl out of bed. I go into the en-suite, jump in the shower for a couple minutes, brush my teeth, and put back on the clothes I had worn yesterday, because the boxes holding all my clothes really are still in the kitchen. I move silently as not to wake Dany. This time, it isn’t because I want to flee. I’ll never leave her like that again. I just want her to sleep. She gets as little sleep as I do, but her sleep deprivation is due to her being a working mom, whereas mine is rooted in my neuroses. 

I go downstairs and find Rhae, sitting on the rug and biting her fingernails, eyes glued to the TV. She’s still in her pajamas: a sleeveless t-shirt and polka dot leggings, and her hair is sticking out in every direction. The sliding back door is open. 

“Did you let Ghost out?” I ask her. 

She nods, never looking away from the TV. 

“Thank you,” I say. “You ready for breakfast?”

She pulls her fingers from her mouth and says, “There’s no food.”

“Well, that’s not true at all. You just haven’t found my secret food box yet.”

Her head turns to me, eyes perking up. “Secret food box?”

Large Home Depot boxes are stacked up all around the perimeter of the living room. Rhae watches as I study the writing upon the sides of them. “Aha!” I exclaim. Atop the box labeled “Vinyl’s” is a box labeled “Towels” with the top flaps of the box un-taped. I open it up and, though the box does contain my extra towels, it is also the box where I tossed most of my snacks into at last minute on moving day. I pull out an unopened box of Swiss Rolls and hear Rhae let out a gasp of excitement. 

“Don’t tell your mom,” I whisper, crawling onto the rug and settling in beside her, our backs against the edge of the sofa Rhae insists I need to replace. “It isn’t comfy!” she always tells me, and I suppose she’s right. I crack open the box and hand her a cake. 

I look at the TV, the volume turned down low, and immediately recognize the content. “Are you watching Stranger Things?” I ask. 

“Yeah,” Rhae replies as she rips open the plastic wrapping that conceals her cake. 

“Is this season three?”

“Yeah.”

I suck in a sharp breath and reach for the remote. “Spoilers. I haven’t seen it yet. We need to start this over.”

Rhae looks at me curiously. “I thought you didn’t like it very much.”

“Um, this is like my favorite show ever,” I reply as I exit out of the show with the SmartTV remote.

“Really?” she asks, voice raising with even more excitement than when she found out I was going to let her eat dessert for breakfast. “Who’s your favorite character?”

“Oh, that is tough. I mean, I love almost everyone. Season one, my fave is definitely Eleven—”

“Eleven’s my favorite!” Rhae squeals. 

“Season two. . . I think my fave is Steve. He’s super cool. I think I’m kind of like Steve.”

“No, you’re too old to be Steve,” Rhae insists with a big grin. “You’re like Hopper, and Mom is like Joyce.”

I press play on the first episode of season three. “Okay, first of all, the actor who plays Steve is not even that much younger than me. Second of all, I am nowhere near as old as Hopper. You are delusional, my friend.”

“You’re delusional!” She bites into her cake and I watch with a knot in my chest as little chocolate particles fall onto my rug. 

I lean forward, grab the quilt Rhae had slept with overnight, and drag it onto her lap. “Do me a favor, Rhae. Keep your crumbs on the blanket. This is much easier to clean than the rug.” As she takes another bite, more chocolate particles fall, captured now by the quilt. “You know,” I say. “My grandmother made this quilt.”

Rhae doesn’t seem too interested, because her eyes are once again glued to the TV screen as the Stranger Things title credits play, but still she asks, “Really? What’s her name?”

“Well, she’s been dead for a long time,” I reply. “But, her name was Lyarra. And my mom’s name was Lyanna.”

She turns to me, finding that bit interesting. “My grandma’s name was Rhaella, and my name is Rhae.”

Having already known that, I smile and nod. I do feel that twinge of awkwardness as I realize that Rhae’s grandma is also my grandma. I wonder what Rhaella Targaryen would think of what’s left of her family. I hope, rather optimistically, that she would take comfort in knowing the last three Targaryens are all together. But maybe Rhae is right – I am delusional. 

Like the angel she is, sent to reassure me of all my life decisions, Dany comes down the stairs, still in her sleep shirt and her hair falling freely in slightly tangled waves. She rubs her eyes and squints at the TV. “Stranger Things again?” she asks with a hint of disapproval, then her eyes move to Rhae and me and her tone becomes even more disapproving. “What are you eating?”

“Want one?” I ask, holding out the Swiss Rolls box. 

She lets out a sigh and drops her knees to the rug, taking a cake from the box. I lean forward and capture her mouth in a lingering kiss, earning us an “Ew” from Rhae. When we separate, Dany crawls to the other side of Rhae and wraps her arms around the girl, holding her tight and planting a series of kisses atop her head until Rhae is having to wiggle out of her grasp. “I’m watching a show!” she announces, wanting not to be distracted any longer. 

Ghost comes trotting inside from the backyard, passes Dany and Rhae and pokes his nose against the side of my face before swiping my cheek with his tongue. I duck away before he can coat me with saliva, and I coax him down onto the rug beside me. He lies down and rests his head upon my lap, and I stroke his fur, from the top of his head to the base of his neck. 

“This is good,” Dany mumbles lazily before taking another bite of her cake. She lies down on her side and, much like Ghost, rests her head upon Rhae’s lap. 

“You’re gonna come to my boxing class with us today, right, Jon?” Rhae asks me.

“Heck yeah.”

Reaching my other hand out, I comb my fingers across Dany’s scalp in the same manner she likes to do to me. When she’s finished with her cake, she sets the wrapper down on the quilt and turns onto her back. She takes my hand in hers and brings it to her chest, hugging it tightly. I smile, finding it hard to keep my eyes on the TV and off how sweet Dany looks resting in the lap of her daughter and cradling my hand while she once again drifts back to sleep. I can’t fathom a more precious sight. That is, until Rhae’s head falls sideways and lands gently against my shoulder. She’s finished her cake, too, and now snacks on her fingernails again as she continues to focus intently on the show. 

I know that them moving in is tentative until Dany can talk to Rhae about it, but I’m excited nonetheless. Ever since I took her to Knott’s Berry Farm, I’ve been back in good favor with Rhae, and I really think she’ll enjoy living here. There’s enough room in the backyard for her trampoline and she’ll be able to choose which of the two spare bedrooms she wants. Maybe she can make friends with those kids down the street who were playing in the sprinklers yesterday. We could be happy here for a long time, I think. 

Maybe it’s foolish of me to think so far into the future, but I can see us all here together ten years from now. Dany and I are married, Rhae is in college or starting a professional boxing career, and maybe there’s a little Targaryen-Snow in the picture who looks like both me and Dany. I don’t know if Dany will ever want to have children with me given our biological relation, and I figure I wouldn’t mind never having a kid of my own, but it would be nice getting to raise a baby from scratch with the woman I love and to watch Rhae become a big sister. 

What I do know for certain is that I’ll never screw things up with Dany and Rhae. I’ll never let them down, I’ll always keep them safe, and they will always remain the most important people in my life, because they are my family – the family I found, the family I chose, and the family I was always meant to be a part of. 

**THE END**


End file.
